the best GPU for DeepSeek R1 in 2026 — 24GB for the 32B distill (cheapest way)

The o1-mini-beating 32B distill wants ~20GB of VRAM, so 24GB is the target. Here are the best GPUs to run DeepSeek R1, from the value king to the…

Aliteq
Ravi Malhotra · Hardware Editor

Best GPUs for DeepSeek R1

Value king: used RTX 3090 (24GB) — runs the 32B distill at ~28-35 tok/s.

Best GPUs for DeepSeek R1

Fastest: RTX 4090 (24GB) — 32B distill at ~38-45 tok/s.

Best GPUs for DeepSeek R1

16GB (e.g. 5060 Ti): run the strong 14B distill instead.

Best GPUs for DeepSeek R1

32B distill ≈ 20GB at Q4 — needs 24GB (with ~4GB for the KV cache).

Best GPUs for DeepSeek R1

70B distill: dual 24GB or a 64GB+ Mac — not a single card.

Best GPUs for DeepSeek R1

Q4_K_M is the best quality-per-GB for the distills.

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the best GPU for DeepSeek R1 in 2026 — 24GB for the 32B distill (cheapest way)

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