DeepSeek R1 Distill 32B needs ~22.8 GB VRAM. RTX A4500 20GB has 20.0 GB. With Q3_K_S quantization, expect ~18 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
6.6 GB over capacity — needs offload or smaller quantization
Fit status
Too heavy
Decode
11.3 tok/s
TTFT
17070 ms
Safe context
4K
Memory
26.6 GB / 20.0 GB
Offload
20%
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 1.9 GB of extra host RAM just for the offloaded portion, before OS and other tools.
| Workload | Grade | Fit | Decode | TTFT | Context |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chat | F | Too heavy | 13.3 tok/s | 7931 ms | 4K |
| Coding | F | Too heavy | 11.3 tok/s | 17070 ms | 4K |
| Agentic Coding | F | Too heavy | 8.5 tok/s | 33121 ms | 4K |
| Reasoning | F | Too heavy | 11.3 tok/s | 20174 ms | 4K |
| RAG | F | Too heavy | 8.5 tok/s | 41402 ms | 4K |
How DeepSeek R1 Distill 32B (32B params) fits at each quantization level on RTX A4500 20GB (20.0 GB usable).
| Quant | Bits | VRAM | Quality | Fit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Q2_KBest for your GPU | 2 | 12.5 GB | Low | A76 |
Q3_K_S | 3 | 15.7 GB | Low | F0 |
Copy-paste commands to run DeepSeek R1 Distill 32B on your machine.
Run
ollama run deepseek-r1:32bUpgrade options
RTX 3090 24GBBest valueMakes the model fit on the accelerator instead of staying completely out of reach.
Raises estimated decode speed by about 88%.
~$1,499 MSRP
RTX 5090 32GBBudget pickMakes the model fit on the accelerator instead of staying completely out of reach.
Removes host-memory offload, which is usually the single biggest latency and throughput win.
~$1,999 MSRP
RTX A5500 24GBNVIDIA upgradeMakes the model fit on the accelerator instead of staying completely out of reach.
Raises estimated decode speed by about 72%.
~$3,200 MSRP
Yes, RTX A4500 20GB can run DeepSeek R1 Distill 32B at Q3_K_S quantization (Very compromised (needs ~1.9 GB host RAM)). The recommended Q4_K_M requires 26.6 GB which exceeds available memory, but at Q3_K_S it needs only 22.8 GB. Expected decode speed: 18.2 tok/s.
DeepSeek R1 Distill 32B (32B parameters) requires approximately 26.6 GB at Q4_K_M quantization. On RTX A4500 20GB, it fits at Q3_K_S using 22.8 GB.
The recommended quantization is Q4_K_M, but on RTX A4500 20GB the best fitting quantization is Q3_K_S, which uses 22.8 GB.
On RTX A4500 20GB, DeepSeek R1 Distill 32B achieves approximately 18.2 tokens per second decode speed with a time-to-first-token of 10623ms using Q3_K_S quantization.
For coding workloads, DeepSeek R1 Distill 32B on RTX A4500 20GB receives a F grade with 11.3 tok/s and 4K context.
On RTX A4500 20GB, DeepSeek R1 Distill 32B can safely use up to 5K tokens of context at Q3_K_S quantization. The model's official context limit is 33K, but available memory constrains the safe maximum.
Paste this snippet into any page to show a live fit card.
<iframe src="https://willitrunai.com/embed/deepseek-r1-distill-32b-on-rtx-a4500-20gb" width="400" height="180" frameborder="0" style="border:none;border-radius:12px;overflow:hidden;" title="Will It Run AI — fit result"></iframe>
Preview:
| 4 |
17.9 GB |
| Medium |
| F0 |
Q4_K_M | 4 | 19.5 GB | Medium | F0 |
Q5_K_M | 5 | 23.0 GB | High | F0 |
Q6_K | 6 | 26.2 GB | High | F0 |
Q8_0 | 8 | 34.2 GB | Very High | F0 |
F16 | 16 | 65.6 GB | Maximum | F0 |
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.