DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen 32B
DeepSeek · Text generation · 32B · 131k context · Released 22 January 2025
Commercial use permitted
Open weights
Runs on CPU
Apple Silicon
DeepSeek released a family of distilled models that transfer the reasoning behaviour of the full 671B R1 into smaller dense models. The 32B Qwen2.5-based version is the strongest of these that still runs on a single high-end card, and it inherits the base model's permissive Apache 2.0 licence.
Strengths
- Strong reasoning for a model that runs on a single 24GB card
- Inherits Qwen2.5-32B's Apache 2.0 licence
- A practical route to R1-style reasoning without a server
Weaknesses
- A distill, so it does not match the full 671B R1
- Verbose and slower than a standard model, like other reasoning models
- Reasoning traces consume context budget
Hardware requirements
| Quantisation | Approx. VRAM | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Q4_K_M | ~20GB | Fits a 24GB card, with little room for long reasoning traces |
| Q5_K_M | ~23GB | Better quality, needs headroom beyond 24GB |
| Q8_0 | ~35GB | Near-lossless, needs 40GB or more |
| FP16 | ~65GB | Full precision, server or multi-GPU territory |
Also runs on CPU (slower). Optimised builds available for Apple Silicon.
Licence
Apache 2.0 — read the licence
Benchmarks
| Benchmark | Score | Source | As of |
|---|---|---|---|
| AIME 2024 | 72.6% | DeepSeek model card | January 2025 |
Availability
- Official page
- Hugging Face
- ollama run deepseek-r1:32b
Recommended for
- Strong local reasoning on a single 24GB card
- Maths and problem solving without a server
- Users who want R1-style reasoning under a permissive licence
Related guides
Glossary
Catalogue entry last verified 30 July 2026. Specifications change; verify anything you are about to spend money on.