HomeCan I run it?R1 Distill 32BR1 Distill 32B on an RTX 4090
Yes, but it is tight. R1 Distill 32B at Q4_K_M needs about 23.8 GB, and the GeForce RTX 4090 has 24.0 GB usable at a ~4k context.
Can I run R1 Distill 32B on an RTX 4090?
R1 Distill 32B at Q4_K_M needs about 23.8 GB, and the GeForce RTX 4090 has 24.0 GB usable. That figure is 24 GB of VRAM on the spec sheet, of which 24.0 GB is usable for weights and cache, at 1008 GB/s memory bandwidth. A 32B DeepSeek-R1 distill on Qwen. Memory need matches Qwen3-32B; the weights are distilled from DeepSeek-R1. These are estimates from our formula, not measured benchmarks.
- Quant that fits
- Q4_K_M Fits, short context only
- Memory needed
- 23.8 GB at Q4_K_M, ~4k context
- Usable VRAM
- 24.0 GB of 24 GB VRAM
- Est. tokens/sec
- 30–43 estimate
Memory at each quant
| Quant | Need vs 24.0 GB | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| Q4_K_M | 23.8 GB | Q4Tight |
| Q8_0 | 41.0 GB | Q8Won’t fit |
| FP16 | 76.4 GB | FP16Won’t fit |
Estimated tokens per second
Estimate: 30–43 tokens/sec at Q4_K_M. This is a bandwidth-derived range, not a bench. Efficiency is a 60–85% GPU band from How we calculate.
Context headroom
At Q4_K_M, this machine has headroom out to about 4k tokens under our KV estimate. Longer chats need more memory for the cache. Figures assume an FP16 KV cache.
| Context | KV cache (FP16) | Total at Q4_K_M | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4k | 1.1 GB | 23.8 GB | Tight |
| 8k | 2.1 GB | 24.9 GB | Won’t fit |
| 16k | 4.3 GB | 27.1 GB | Won’t fit |
| 32k | 8.6 GB | 31.4 GB | Won’t fit |
| 64k | 17.2 GB | 39.9 GB | Won’t fit |
| 128k | 34.4 GB | 57.1 GB | Won’t fit |
What to do instead
- Run Qwen3-32B instead (23.8 GB at Q4). It is a different model, not a drop-in, but it does fit this machine.
- Q8_0 needs 41.0 GB and does not fit here. The Mac mini M5 Pro 64GB has 48.0 GB usable, enough for Q8.
- See the best GPU for this model family and the DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-32B model page.
Other hardware for R1 Distill 32B
- R1 Distill 32B on an RTX 3090Tight
- R1 Distill 32B on an RTX 5080Won’t fit
- R1 Distill 32B on an RTX 5090Fits
- R1 Distill 32B on a Mac mini 24GBWon’t fit
- R1 Distill 32B on an RX 7900 XTXTight
Other models on an RTX 4090
- Qwen3-32B on an RTX 4090Tight
- Qwen3-30B-A3B on an RTX 4090Tight
- Qwen3.8-27B on an RTX 4090Fits
- Gemma 3 27B on an RTX 4090Fits
- Gemma 4 31B on an RTX 4090Tight
- gpt-oss-20b on an RTX 4090Fits
Quick answers
- Can I run R1 Distill 32B on an RTX 4090?
- Yes, but it is tight. R1 Distill 32B at Q4_K_M needs about 23.8 GB, and the GeForce RTX 4090 has 24.0 GB usable.
- How much VRAM does R1 Distill 32B need?
- About 23.8 GB at Q4_K_M, 41.0 GB at Q8_0 and 76.4 GB at FP16, estimated for a ~4k context.
- How fast is R1 Distill 32B on an RTX 4090?
- Our estimate is 30–43 tokens per second at Q4_K_M. It is not a measured benchmark.
- What context length can I use?
- At Q4_K_M, our KV estimate supports up to about 4k tokens before the cache pushes the total over usable memory.