DeepSeek R1 Distill 32B needs ~18.9 GB VRAM. RX 6900 XT 16GB has 16.0 GB. With Q2_K quantization, expect ~11 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
9.9 GB over capacity — needs offload or smaller quantization
Fit status
Too heavy
Decode
4.4 tok/s
TTFT
44158 ms
Safe context
4K
Memory
25.9 GB / 16.0 GB
Offload
40%
It fits through host-memory offload, and offload is the main reason performance drops.
CPU or host-memory offload is active
About 20% 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 | 5.2 tok/s | 20425 ms | 4K |
| Coding | F | Too heavy | 4.1 tok/s | 47690 ms | 4K |
| Agentic Coding | F | Too heavy | 3.3 tok/s | 86304 ms | 4K |
| Reasoning | F | Too heavy | 4.1 tok/s | 56361 ms | 4K |
| RAG | F | Too heavy | 3.3 tok/s | 107880 ms | 4K |
How DeepSeek R1 Distill 32B (32B params) fits at each quantization level on RX 6900 XT 16GB (16.0 GB usable).
| Quant | Bits | VRAM | Quality | Fit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Q2_K | 2 | 12.5 GB | Low | F0 |
Q3_K_S | 3 | 15.7 GB | Low | F0 |
NVFP4 | 4 |
Copy-paste commands to run DeepSeek R1 Distill 32B on your machine.
Run
ollama run deepseek-r1:32bUpgrade options
Makes the model fit on the accelerator instead of staying completely out of reach.
Raises estimated decode speed by about 420%.
~$999 MSRP
Makes 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.
~$1,899 MSRP
Makes 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.
~$2,249 MSRP
NVIDIA A100 40GBBiggest leapMakes 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.
~$10,000 MSRP
Yes, RX 6900 XT 16GB can run DeepSeek R1 Distill 32B at Q2_K quantization (Very compromised (needs ~1.9 GB host RAM)). The recommended Q4_K_M requires 25.9 GB which exceeds available memory, but at Q2_K it needs only 18.9 GB. Expected decode speed: 11.4 tok/s.
DeepSeek R1 Distill 32B (32B parameters) requires approximately 25.9 GB at Q4_K_M quantization. On RX 6900 XT 16GB, it fits at Q2_K using 18.9 GB.
The recommended quantization is Q4_K_M, but on RX 6900 XT 16GB the best fitting quantization is Q2_K, which uses 18.9 GB.
On RX 6900 XT 16GB, DeepSeek R1 Distill 32B achieves approximately 11.4 tokens per second decode speed with a time-to-first-token of 17048ms using Q2_K quantization.
For coding workloads, DeepSeek R1 Distill 32B on RX 6900 XT 16GB receives a F grade with 4.1 tok/s and 4K context.
On RX 6900 XT 16GB, DeepSeek R1 Distill 32B can safely use up to 4K tokens of context at Q2_K 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-rx-6900-xt-16gb" width="400" height="180" frameborder="0" style="border:none;border-radius:12px;overflow:hidden;" title="Will It Run AI — fit result"></iframe>
Preview:
| 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.