HomeCan I run it?DeepSeek-R1DeepSeek-R1 on dual RTX 3090s
No. DeepSeek-R1 at Q4_K_M needs about 478.2 GB, and dual RTX 3090s have 48.0 GB usable at a ~4k context.
Can I run DeepSeek-R1 on dual RTX 3090s?
DeepSeek-R1 at Q4_K_M needs about 478.2 GB, and dual RTX 3090s have 48.0 GB usable. Two cards add memory, not decode speed; the speed estimate uses one RTX 3090’s 936 GB/s. The full DeepSeek-R1 teacher model (hundreds of billions of parameters). No single device we track holds it at Q4. These are estimates from our formula, not measured benchmarks.
- Quant that fits
- None of Q4, Q8 or FP16 needs 478.2 GB
- Memory needed
- 478.2 GB at Q4_K_M, ~4k context
- Usable VRAM
- 48.0 GB of 48 GB VRAM
- Est. tokens/sec
- n/a does not fit
Memory at each quant
| Quant | Need vs 48.0 GB | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| Q4_K_M | 478.2 GB | Q4Won’t fit |
| Q8_0 | 837.4 GB | Q8Won’t fit |
| FP16 | 1575.3 GB | FP16Won’t fit |
Estimated tokens per second
No speed estimate: DeepSeek-R1 does not fit in the 48.0 GB this machine can use, so we do not publish a tokens/sec figure for CPU offload.
Context headroom
We do not have a published KV config for this model, so the memory need is the ~4k-context estimate only. Use the VRAM calculator to explore longer chats.
What to do instead
- Run R1 Distill 32B instead (23.8 GB at Q4). It is a different model, not a drop-in, but it does fit this machine.
- No single device we track has enough usable memory for DeepSeek-R1 at Q4 (478.2 GB needed). A smaller distill or a hosted API is the practical path.
- CPU offload can load the weights anyway, but it is slow. We do not publish an offload tokens/sec figure.
- See the best GPU for this model family and the DeepSeek-R1 model page.
Other hardware for DeepSeek-R1
- DeepSeek-R1 on a Mac Studio 512GBWon’t fit
- DeepSeek-R1 on a Mac Studio 256GBWon’t fit
- DeepSeek-R1 on an RTX 5090Won’t fit
- DeepSeek-R1 on an RTX 4090Won’t fit
Other models on dual RTX 3090s
- Llama 3.3 70B on dual RTX 3090sWon’t fit
- R1 Distill 70B on dual RTX 3090sWon’t fit
- gpt-oss-120b on dual RTX 3090sWon’t fit
- Qwen3-235B on dual RTX 3090sWon’t fit
- Mixtral 8x22B on dual RTX 3090sWon’t fit
- GLM-4.5-Air on dual RTX 3090sWon’t fit
Quick answers
- Can I run DeepSeek-R1 on dual RTX 3090s?
- No. DeepSeek-R1 at Q4_K_M needs about 478.2 GB, and dual RTX 3090s have 48.0 GB usable.
- How much VRAM does DeepSeek-R1 need?
- About 478.2 GB at Q4_K_M, 837.4 GB at Q8_0 and 1575.3 GB at FP16, estimated for a ~4k context.
- How fast is DeepSeek-R1 on dual RTX 3090s?
- We do not estimate tokens/sec when the model does not fit. CPU offload is possible but slow.