Can I Run DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-14B on RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB Desktop (16 GB VRAM, 32 GB RAM)?

Superseded model. DeepSeek R1 has been superseded by DeepSeek V4. This page is kept for reference; the newer family is a better starting point. View DeepSeek V4 →

Written by Jakub Rusinowski · Last updated January 20, 2025

These figures are for DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-14B, a distill of Qwen2.5-14B — not the full DeepSeek R1. The full DeepSeek R1 (671B) needs about 405 GB of weights at Q4_K_M and is a different model.

Yes

Yes — DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 14B at Q6_K needs about 13.6 GB of the 16 GB usable on RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB Desktop (16 GB VRAM, 32 GB RAM) (~2.4 GB spare), at ~26 tok/s (estimated), with room for about 16,384 tokens of context.

Confidence: high · Recommended quantization: Q6_K · Estimated speed: ~26 tok/s

RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB Desktop (16 GB VRAM, 32 GB RAM) — what it gives a model

Usable memory for models16 GB
Memory bandwidth448 GB/s
Form factorDesktop
Operating systemWindows or Linux
Memory upgradeableYes

DeepSeek R1 on RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB Desktop (16 GB VRAM, 32 GB RAM): memory by quantization

QuantMemory neededFits 16 GB?Max contextEst. speedDownload
F1630.1 GB✗ No28 GB
Q8_017 GB✗ No14.9 GB
Q6_K13.6 GB✓ Yes16K~26 tok/s11.5 GB
Q5_K_M12.1 GB✓ Yes16K~29.6 tok/s9.9 GB
Q4_K_M10.6 GB✓ Yes32K~34 tok/s8.5 GB
Q3_K_M8.1 GB✓ Yes32K~45.4 tok/s6 GB
Q2_K6.7 GB✓ Yes32K~55.7 tok/s4.6 GB

Which DeepSeek R1 sizes fit

VariantNeeds at Q4_K_MFits?Est. speed
DeepSeek R1 (671B)406.5 GB✗ Too large
DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 32B22.3 GB✗ Too large
DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 14B10.6 GB✓ Fits~34 tok/s
DeepSeek R1 Distill Llama 8B6.7 GB✓ Fits~54.9 tok/s

What to watch out for

RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB desktop limitations

Recommended setup

Ollama or llama.cpp (CUDA/ROCm) — vLLM if you need concurrent serving

How these numbers are calculated

FAQ

Can I run DeepSeek R1 on RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB Desktop (16 GB VRAM, 32 GB RAM)?

Yes — DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 14B at Q6_K needs about 13.6 GB of the 16 GB usable on RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB Desktop (16 GB VRAM, 32 GB RAM) (~2.4 GB spare), at ~26 tok/s (estimated), with room for about 16,384 tokens of context.

Which quantization of DeepSeek R1 should I use on RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB Desktop (16 GB VRAM, 32 GB RAM)?

Q6_K — it needs about 13.6 GB of the 16 GB available, downloads as roughly 11.5 GB, and runs at an estimated 26 tokens/sec with up to 16K of context.

What limits DeepSeek R1 on RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB Desktop (16 GB VRAM, 32 GB RAM)?

Nothing binding — the model fits with headroom and generates at a usable speed on this hardware.

Which runtime should I use?

Ollama or llama.cpp (CUDA/ROCm) — vLLM if you need concurrent serving

Other Models on RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB Desktop (16 GB VRAM, 32 GB RAM)

DeepSeek R1 on GPUs

What This Model Is Good At

Model & Tools

← Can I Run It? | DeepSeek R1 model page | Check your hardware