DeepSeek R1 Distill 14B needs ~13.6 GB VRAM. RTX 4070 Super 12GB has 12.0 GB. With Q4_K_M quantization, expect ~30 tok/s.
Operating mode
Interactive favors responsiveness, while light API and scale-out lean harder on serving readiness. The fit stays the same, but the recommendation lens changes.
Current mode
Balanced
Balanced for general local use. Keeps the ranking neutral across personal and serving workflows.
Select quantization to explore
1.6 GB over capacity — needs offload or smaller quantization
Fit status
Very compromised (needs ~1 GB host RAM)
Decode
29.8 tok/s
TTFT
6489 ms
Safe context
7K
Memory
13.6 GB / 12.0 GB
Offload
10%
It fits through host-memory offload, and offload is the main reason performance drops.
CPU or host-memory offload is active
About 10% of the working set spills out of accelerator memory, which usually hurts latency and sustained decode throughput.
Very little memory headroom
You can run the model, but there is not much room left for longer context, bigger batches, extra apps, or future model updates.
Remove offload with more accelerator memory
Prioritize a GPU or unified-memory tier that fits the whole model natively. Removing offload usually helps more than small compute gains.
Buy headroom, not only minimum fit
A slightly larger memory tier gives you safer context growth and makes the recommendation more future-proof.
Increase host RAM if you keep offloading
This setup may need roughly 1.0 GB of extra host RAM just for the offloaded portion, before OS and other tools.
| Workload | Grade | Fit | Decode | TTFT | Context |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chat | A | Runs with offload (needs ~0.1 GB host RAM) | 37.9 tok/s | 2783 ms | 7K |
| Coding | B | Very compromised (needs ~1 GB host RAM) | 29.8 tok/s | 6489 ms | 7K |
| Agentic Coding | F | Too heavy | 19.8 tok/s | 14243 ms | 7K |
| Reasoning | B | Very compromised (needs ~1 GB host RAM) | 29.8 tok/s | 7668 ms | 7K |
| RAG | F | Too heavy | 19.8 tok/s | 17803 ms | 7K |
Inference speed
Estimated decode speed (tokens/sec) for DeepSeek R1 Distill 14B at Q4_K_M across popular GPUs and Apple Silicon, using the fastest local runtime per device. Fastest is RTX 5090 32GB at ~152 tok/s. Speed is memory-bandwidth bound, so cards that fit the whole model in VRAM run far faster than ones that offload to system RAM.
| GPU / Mac | Memory | Quant | Speed (tok/s) | Fits? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 RTX 5090 32GB | 32 GB | Q4_K_M | 151.8 | Fits |
| RTX 4090 24GB | 24 GB | Q4_K_M | 96.9 | Fits |
RX 7900 XTX 24GB | 24 GB | Q4_K_M | 87.4 | Fits |
| RTX 3090 24GB | 24 GB | Q4_K_M | 82.9 | Fits |
| RTX 4080 Super 16GB | 16 GB | Q4_K_M | 81.1 | Tight |
Mac Studio M3 Ultra 256GB | 256 GB | Q4_K_M | 70.4 | Fits |
Mac Studio M2 Ultra 128GB | 128 GB | Q4_K_M | 58.7 | Fits |
Mac Studio M1 Ultra 128GB | 128 GB | Q4_K_M | 55.6 | Fits |
MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB | 128 GB | Q4_K_M | 38.3 | Fits |
MacBook Pro M4 Max 64GB | 64 GB | Q4_K_M | 38.3 | Fits |
MacBook Pro M3 Max 64GB | 64 GB | Q4_K_M | 30.4 | Fits |
| RTX 4070 12GB | 12 GB | Q4_K_M | 29.1 | Heavy offload |
MacBook Pro M1 Max 64GB | 64 GB | Q4_K_M | 27.8 | Fits |
MacBook Pro M4 Pro 48GB | 48 GB | Q4_K_M | 23.4 | Fits |
| RTX 3060 12GB | 12 GB | Q4_K_M | 17.0 | Heavy offload |
| RTX 4060 8GB | 8 GB | Q4_K_M | 6.3 | Too big |
Estimates for single-stream decoding at Q4_K_M; real tokens/sec varies with prompt length, context, batch size, and runtime build. Prompt processing (prefill) is faster than the decode figures shown here.
How DeepSeek R1 Distill 14B (14B params) fits at each quantization level on RTX 4070 Super 12GB (12.0 GB usable).
| Quant | Bits | VRAM | Quality | Fit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Q2_K | 2 | 5.5 GB | Low | A77 |
Q3_K_S | 3 | 6.9 GB | Low | A76 |
NVFP4 | 4 | 7.8 GB | Medium | A76 |
Q4_K_MBest for your GPU | 4 | 8.5 GB | Medium | A76 |
Q5_K_M | 5 | 10.1 GB | High | F0 |
Q6_K | 6 | 11.5 GB | High | F0 |
Q8_0 | 8 | 15.0 GB | Very High | F0 |
F16 | 16 | 28.7 GB | Maximum | F0 |
Copy-paste commands to run DeepSeek R1 Distill 14B on your machine.
Run
ollama run deepseek-r1Upgrade options
RTX 5060 Ti 16GBBudget pickRemoves host-memory offload, which is usually the single biggest latency and throughput win.
Adds memory headroom for longer context windows and future model growth.
~$449 MSRP
RTX 4060 Ti 16GBBest valueRemoves host-memory offload, which is usually the single biggest latency and throughput win.
Adds memory headroom for longer context windows and future model growth.
~$499 MSRP
RTX 2000 Ada 16GBNVIDIA upgradeRemoves host-memory offload, which is usually the single biggest latency and throughput win.
Adds memory headroom for longer context windows and future model growth.
~$625 MSRP
Yes, RTX 4070 Super 12GB can run DeepSeek R1 Distill 14B with a B grade (Very compromised (needs ~1 GB host RAM)). Expected decode speed: 29.8 tok/s.
DeepSeek R1 Distill 14B (14B parameters) requires approximately 13.6 GB of memory with Q4_K_M quantization.
The recommended quantization for DeepSeek R1 Distill 14B is Q4_K_M, which balances quality and memory efficiency.
On RTX 4070 Super 12GB, DeepSeek R1 Distill 14B achieves approximately 29.8 tokens per second decode speed with a time-to-first-token of 6489ms using Q4_K_M quantization.
For coding workloads, DeepSeek R1 Distill 14B on RTX 4070 Super 12GB receives a B grade with 29.8 tok/s and 7K context.
On RTX 4070 Super 12GB, DeepSeek R1 Distill 14B can safely use up to 7K tokens of context. The model's official context limit is 33K, but available memory constrains the safe maximum.
Remove offload with more accelerator memory. Prioritize a GPU or unified-memory tier that fits the whole model natively. Removing offload usually helps more than small compute gains.
Paste this snippet into any page to show a live fit card.
<iframe src="https://willitrunai.com/embed/deepseek-r1-distill-14b-on-rtx-4070-super-12gb" width="400" height="180" frameborder="0" style="border:none;border-radius:12px;overflow:hidden;" title="Will It Run AI — fit result"></iframe>
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