Can DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 14B run on Mac Studio M2 Ultra 128GB?

YES — Runs Great

C46Usable
Estimated from fit model

DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 14B needs ~24.9 GB VRAM. Mac Studio M2 Ultra 128GB has 92.2 GB. With Q4_K_M quantization, expect ~54 tok/s.

Runtime: llama.cppCapacity: RoomyBandwidth: HighStack: StandardBottleneck: Balanced
Share:

Operating mode

Choose the run profile you care about

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.

Capabilities:

Select quantization to explore

Q4_K_M (Medium quality) 24.9 GB, 54.3 tok/s, Runs well
24.9 GB required92.2 GB available
27% VRAM used

Fit status

Runs well

Decode

54.3 tok/s

TTFT

3563 ms

Safe context

672K

Memory

24.9 GB / 92.2 GB

Memory breakdown

Weights8.5 GB
KV Cache1.6 GB
Runtime0.9 GB
Headroom13.8 GB

See how fast it feels

See how fast it feelsDeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 14B on Mac Studio M2 Ultra 128GB
1st promptCold start — includes initialization
>Solve: If a train travels at 60 mph for 2.5 hours, how far does it go?
Let me work through this step by step. Given information: - Speed = 60 mph (miles per hour) - Time = 2.5 hours Formula: Distance = Speed x Time Calculation: Distance = 60 mph x 2.5 h = 150 miles The train travels 150 miles. Double-check: at 60 mph the train covers 60 miles each hour. In half an hour it covers 30 miles. So in 2.5 hours: 60 + 60 + 30 = 150 miles. Confirmed.
2nd promptWarm — model ready, no init overhead
>What if the train stops for 20 minutes halfway?
The stop doesn't change the total distance covered while moving, but it affects total trip time. Breakdown: - First half: 1.25 hours at 60 mph = 75 miles - Stop: 20 minutes (no distance) - Second half: 1.25 hours at 60 mph = 75 miles Total distance: 150 miles (same) Total time: 2.5 h + 0.33 h = 2.83 hours Average speed: 150 / 2.83 = 53 mph The distance stays the same but average speed drops to 53 mph because of the stop.
Estimated: 54.3 tok/s decode · 3.6s TTFT (warm) · 136 tok/s prefill

What limits this setup

This setup is broadly balanced for this model.

Shared-memory contention still exists

The OS, browser, and inference runtime all compete for the same physical memory pool, so real-world headroom is less forgiving than raw capacity suggests.

Best improvement path

Performance by workload

WorkloadGradeFitDecodeTTFTContext
ChatCRuns well54.3 tok/s1944 ms672K
CodingCRuns well54.3 tok/s3563 ms672K
Agentic CodingCRuns well54.3 tok/s5183 ms672K
ReasoningCRuns well54.3 tok/s4211 ms672K
RAGCRuns well54.3 tok/s6479 ms672K

Inference speed

DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 14B inference speed — tokens per second by GPU & Mac

Estimated decode speed (tokens/sec) for DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 14B at Q4_K_M across popular GPUs and Apple Silicon, using the fastest local runtime per device. Fastest is RTX 5090 32GB at ~141 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 / MacMemoryQuantSpeed (tok/s)Fits?
NVIDIARTX 5090 32GB
32 GBQ4_K_M140.6Fits
NVIDIARTX 4090 24GB
24 GBQ4_K_M89.7Fits
RX 7900 XTX 24GB
24 GBQ4_K_M80.9Fits
NVIDIARTX 3090 24GB
24 GBQ4_K_M76.7Fits
NVIDIARTX 4080 Super 16GB
16 GBQ4_K_M75.1Fits
Mac Studio M3 Ultra 256GB
256 GBQ4_K_M65.2Fits
Mac Studio M2 Ultra 128GB
128 GBQ4_K_M54.3Fits
Mac Studio M1 Ultra 128GB
128 GBQ4_K_M51.5Fits
MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB
128 GBQ4_K_M35.4Fits
MacBook Pro M4 Max 64GB
64 GBQ4_K_M35.4Fits
NVIDIARTX 4070 12GB
12 GBQ4_K_M33.2Offloads
MacBook Pro M3 Max 64GB
64 GBQ4_K_M28.1Fits
MacBook Pro M1 Max 64GB
64 GBQ4_K_M25.8Fits
MacBook Pro M4 Pro 48GB
48 GBQ4_K_M21.7Fits
NVIDIARTX 3060 12GB
12 GBQ4_K_M19.5Offloads
NVIDIARTX 4060 8GB
8 GBQ4_K_M7.2Too 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.

Quantization options

How DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 14B (14B params) fits at each quantization level on Mac Studio M2 Ultra 128GB (92.2 GB usable).

QuantBitsVRAMQualityFit
Q2_K
2
5.5 GB
LowD39
Q3_K_S
3
6.9 GB
LowD39
NVFP4
4
7.8 GB
MediumD40
Q4_K_M
4
8.5 GB
MediumD40
Q5_K_M
5
10.1 GB
HighD40
Q6_K
6
11.5 GB
HighD40
Q8_0
8
15.0 GB
Very HighC40
F16Best for your GPU
16
28.7 GB
MaximumC42

Get started

Copy-paste commands to run DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 14B on your machine.

Run

lms load hf-unsloth--deepseek-r1-distill-qwen-14b-gguf && lms server start

アップグレードオプション

DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 14Bを快適に動かすハードウェア

Frequently asked questions

Can Mac Studio M2 Ultra 128GB run DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 14B?

Yes, Mac Studio M2 Ultra 128GB can run DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 14B with a C grade (Runs well). Expected decode speed: 54.3 tok/s.

How much VRAM does DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 14B need?

DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 14B (14B parameters) requires approximately 24.9 GB of memory with Q4_K_M quantization.

What is the best quantization for DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 14B?

The recommended quantization for DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 14B is Q4_K_M, which balances quality and memory efficiency.

What speed will DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 14B run at on Mac Studio M2 Ultra 128GB?

On Mac Studio M2 Ultra 128GB, DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 14B achieves approximately 54.3 tokens per second decode speed with a time-to-first-token of 3563ms using Q4_K_M quantization.

Can Mac Studio M2 Ultra 128GB run DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 14B for coding?

For coding workloads, DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 14B on Mac Studio M2 Ultra 128GB receives a C grade with 54.3 tok/s and 672K context.

What context window can DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 14B use on Mac Studio M2 Ultra 128GB?

On Mac Studio M2 Ultra 128GB, DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 14B can safely use up to 672K tokens of context. The model's official context limit is —, but available memory constrains the safe maximum.

Is unified memory on Mac Studio M2 Ultra 128GB as fast as VRAM for DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 14B?

Not always. Mac Studio M2 Ultra 128GB can often fit larger models thanks to unified memory, but a discrete GPU with dedicated high-bandwidth VRAM may still decode faster once the model fits. For this combination, the important distinction is capacity versus sustained throughput.

See all results for Mac Studio M2 Ultra 128GBSee all hardware for DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 14B
Embed this result

Paste this snippet into any page to show a live fit card.

<iframe src="https://willitrunai.com/embed/hf-unsloth--deepseek-r1-distill-qwen-14b-gguf-on-m2-ultra-128gb" width="400" height="180" frameborder="0" style="border:none;border-radius:12px;overflow:hidden;" title="Will It Run AI — fit result"></iframe>

Preview: