Can a NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 run DeepSeek-R1 Distill Qwen (32B)?
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 has 16GB VRAM. Here's exactly whichprecision (FP16, FP8, GGUF)of DeepSeek-R1 Distill Qwen (32B) fits and how smoothly it runs.
Too much for this GPU
The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 (16GB) doesn't have enough VRAM for DeepSeek-R1 Distill Qwen (32B) even at its smallest size (19.4GB needed). Rent a cloud GPU or step up to a bigger card.
Run it in the cloud instead
A 24GB RTX 4090 instance runs DeepSeek-R1 Distill Qwen (32B) at full quality, starting at pennies/hour.
Disclosure: Cloud provider links are referrals at no additional cost to you.
DeepSeek-R1 Distill Qwen (32B) variants on the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080
| Variant | Precision | Size | Total VRAM needed | Headroom | Fits? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Q4_K_M (4-bit Recommended)REC | q4_k_m | 19.4GB | 19.4GB | -3.4GB | ✗ OOM |
| Q8_0 (8-bit GGUF) | q8_0 | 36.3GB | 36.3GB | -20.3GB | ✗ OOM |
| FP16 (Uncompressed) | fp16 | 68.5GB | 68.5GB | -52.5GB | ✗ OOM |
"Total VRAM needed" = variant size + 0.0GB estimated text-encoder/VAE overhead. Headroom = GPU VRAM (16GB) − total needed. Green ≥ 1.5GB headroom; Red ≤ −2GB (will OOM).