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Can the NVIDIA L40S run DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 32B?

68Good quality (B) · 68 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 81/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.

Yes, it runs great

Runs great. At Q4_K_M it needs about 25.2 GB of 48.0 GB usable, with an estimated speed of 32.3 tok/s.

Best quant
Q4_K_M
Generation speed
32.3 tok/s
Prompt processing
2,011 tok/s
First token (1K prompt)
0.5 s
Largest safe context
93K

Best app to run it on the NVIDIA L40S

On Linux

vLLM

Inference server · runs on vLLM

  • The full model fits in GPU memory at 8-bit, so it can batch many requests: best for serving a team or an app.
vllm serve deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-32B
  • Ollama One command with Ollama’s own build of this model.
  • LM Studio Point-and-click: search, download and chat in one window.

On Windows

Ollama

Command line + local API · runs on llama.cpp (ggml), MLX (Apple silicon, preview)

  • One command with Ollama’s own build of this model.
  • Serves an OpenAI-compatible API that other apps and coding tools can use.
ollama run deepseek-r1:32b-qwen-distill-q4_K_M
  • LM Studio Point-and-click: search, download and chat in one window.
  • llama.cpp Usually the first to support new model architectures.

Want an agent? DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 32B supports tool use, so you can pair a llama.cpp or MLX LM server with one of these. Apps that run on this computer come first.

Coding agents

Personal assistants

How we choose: the files published for this model, your operating system and GPU, whether it fits fully in memory, and published speed tests (MLX vs llama.cpp on Apple silicon, vLLM vs llama.cpp vs Ollama on NVIDIA). Details.

Download DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 32B

Recommended for the NVIDIA L40S: Q4_K_M. Every other quantization has its own download link in the table below.

Quickest · Ollama

One command downloads a ready-to-run version and starts a chat.

Get Ollama at ollama.com/download (opens in a new tab) · model page (opens in a new tab)

ollama run deepseek-r1:32b-qwen-distill-q4_K_M

Quantized files · GGUF

Works in LM Studio, llama.cpp, Jan and Ollama. No sign-in needed.

Download the Q4_K_M file (opens in a new tab)

huggingface.co/unsloth/DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-32B-GGUF (opens in a new tab)

ollama run hf.co/unsloth/DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-32B-GGUF:Q4_K_M

Original weights · Hugging Face

Full-precision files from DeepSeek, for fine-tuning, vLLM, Transformers.

huggingface.co/deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-32B (opens in a new tab)

No sign-in needed.

Official repo · GitHub

Reference code, inference scripts and docs from DeepSeek. The weights themselves download from Hugging Face.

github.com/deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-R1 (opens in a new tab)

The R1 repo covers the distilled models too.

git clone https://github.com/deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-R1

Links checked 3 days ago against Hugging Face, Ollama and GitHub.

How it’s rated

Quality 68Good quality (B) · 68 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 81/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.
How capable the model itself is at Q4_K_M, from its editorial quality tier scaled by the quantization or precision. It’s the same on any hardware that runs this variant. Scale: A+ 85+ · A 70+ · B 55+ · C 40+ · D under 40.
Runs Runs great
How well it runs on the NVIDIA L40S: speed, capped by how well it fits in memory. Runs great: 30+ tokens/s (or near the image, video or decision speed target) · Runs well: 10+ tokens/s · Slow: 3+ tokens/s · Very slow: under 3 · Won’t run: doesn’t fit even with offload. A tight fit or RAM offload caps it at Runs well; heavy offload caps it at Slow.

Match score

To order lists, each result also gets a match score out of 100 from four parts. It favors the most capable model that still runs well.

Model qualityEditorial quality tier of the model, scaled by the quantization or precision used.30.8 / 45
Memory fitFull marks when everything sits in GPU memory; fewer when part spills to system RAM.25.0 / 25
SpeedGeneration speed against a 40 tokens/s target for LLMs, or render time against a target for image and video.13.5 / 15
Memory useRewards using the memory you have, so a bigger, better variant beats a tiny one that leaves most memory idle.12.1 / 15
Match score81.4 / 100

The match score orders results; it is not shown as a grade. Quality and Runs are the two ratings in the tables.

Every quantization on the NVIDIA L40S

Quant Memory needed Available Speed Runs Quality Download
Q2_K 18.3 GB 48.0 GB 53.1 tok/s Runs great 50Fair quality (C) · 50 of 100: how capable the model is at Q2_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 71/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. GGUF (opens in a new tab)
Q3_K_M 21.2 GB 48.0 GB 41.8 tok/s Runs great 60Good quality (B) · 60 of 100: how capable the model is at Q3_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 77/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. GGUF (opens in a new tab)
Q4_K_M 25.2 GB 48.0 GB 32.3 tok/s Runs great 68Good quality (B) · 68 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 81/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. GGUF (opens in a new tab)
Q5_K_M 28.4 GB 48.0 GB 26.7 tok/s Runs well 69Good quality (B) · 69 of 100: how capable the model is at Q5_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 82/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. GGUF (opens in a new tab)
Q6_K 32.0 GB 48.0 GB 22.4 tok/s Runs well 71Great quality (A) · 71 of 100: how capable the model is at Q6_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 83/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. GGUF (opens in a new tab)
Q8_0 39.9 GB 48.0 GB 16.5 tok/s Runs well 72Great quality (A) · 72 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 82/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. GGUF (opens in a new tab)
F16 70.7 GB 48.0 GB — Won't run 72Great quality (A) · 72 of 100: how capable the model is at F16, whatever it runs on. Match score 9/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. GGUF · folder (opens in a new tab) Original weights (opens in a new tab)

Memory figures assume 8K of context. Longer conversations or documents grow the KV cache.

Other hardware that runs it

Quick answers

How much memory does DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 32B need on the NVIDIA L40S 48GB?

At Q4_K_M it needs about 25.2 GB. The NVIDIA L40S 48GB has 48.0 GB usable.

How fast is DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 32B on the NVIDIA L40S 48GB?

About 32.3 tok/s at Q4_K_M, an estimate from the hardware’s memory bandwidth and the size of the model.

Which quantization of DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 32B should I use on the NVIDIA L40S 48GB?

Q4_K_M. Of the versions that fit, it is the one that runs best; when two run equally well, the check prefers the higher-rated one.

Estimates come from published hardware specs and our open formulas, not from running the model on your machine. Real speed varies with runtime, drivers and settings. Numbers marked “Measured” come from a linked benchmark.

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