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Can the NVIDIA L40 run DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 7B?

46Fair quality (C) · 46 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 66/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.

Yes, it runs great

Runs great. At Q8_0 it needs about 11.5 GB of 48.0 GB usable, with an estimated speed of 70.9 tok/s.

Best quant
Q8_0
Generation speed
70.9 tok/s
Prompt processing
8,551 tok/s
First token (1K prompt)
0.3 s
Largest safe context
128K

Best app to run it on the NVIDIA L40

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-7B
  • 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-r1:7b-qwen-distill-q8_0
  • LM Studio Point-and-click: search, download and chat in one window.
  • llama.cpp Usually the first to support new model architectures.

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 7B

Recommended for the NVIDIA L40: Q8_0. 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-r1:7b-qwen-distill-q8_0

Quantized files · GGUF

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

Download the Q8_0 file (opens in a new tab)

huggingface.co/unsloth/DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-7B-GGUF (opens in a new tab)

ollama run hf.co/unsloth/DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-7B-GGUF:Q8_0

Original weights · Hugging Face

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

huggingface.co/deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-7B (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 46Fair quality (C) · 46 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 66/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.
How capable the model itself is at Q8_0, 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 L40: 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.20.7 / 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.15.0 / 15
Memory useRewards using the memory you have, so a bigger, better variant beats a tiny one that leaves most memory idle.5.6 / 15
Match score66.3 / 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 L40

Quant Memory needed Available Speed Runs Quality Download
Q2_K 6.5 GB 48.0 GB 229 tok/s Runs great 32Basic quality (D) · 32 of 100: how capable the model is at Q2_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 57/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. GGUF (opens in a new tab)
Q3_K_M 7.2 GB 48.0 GB 180 tok/s Runs great 38Basic quality (D) · 38 of 100: how capable the model is at Q3_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 60/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. GGUF (opens in a new tab)
Q4_K_M 8.1 GB 48.0 GB 139 tok/s Runs great 43Fair quality (C) · 43 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 63/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. GGUF (opens in a new tab)
Q5_K_M 8.9 GB 48.0 GB 115 tok/s Runs great 44Fair quality (C) · 44 of 100: how capable the model is at Q5_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 64/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. GGUF (opens in a new tab)
Q6_K 9.7 GB 48.0 GB 96.6 tok/s Runs great 45Fair quality (C) · 45 of 100: how capable the model is at Q6_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 65/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. GGUF (opens in a new tab)
Q8_0 11.5 GB 48.0 GB 70.9 tok/s Runs great 46Fair quality (C) · 46 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 66/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. GGUF (opens in a new tab)
F16 18.7 GB 48.0 GB 32.7 tok/s Runs great 46Fair quality (C) · 46 of 100: how capable the model is at F16, whatever it runs on. Match score 68/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. GGUF (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 7B need on the NVIDIA L40 48GB?

At Q8_0 it needs about 11.5 GB. The NVIDIA L40 48GB has 48.0 GB usable.

How fast is DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 7B on the NVIDIA L40 48GB?

About 70.9 tok/s at Q8_0, an estimate from the hardware’s memory bandwidth and the size of the model.

Which quantization of DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 7B should I use on the NVIDIA L40 48GB?

Q8_0. 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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