DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 32B on Apple M3 Pro (18GB Unified)
Apple M3 Pro (18GB Unified) cannot run DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 32B at any quantization level. The 18 GB of VRAM is insufficient.
Model Size
32.5B
Device VRAM
18 GB
Bandwidth
150 GB/s
Quantizations Tested
1
Performance by Quantization
Each row shows DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 32B performance at a different quality level on Apple M3 Pro (18GB Unified).
| Quantization | Speed | TTFT | Fits in VRAM | Rating | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Q3_K_M | — | — | ✗ Offload | Not Viable | estimated |
Notes
Q3_K_M
32B exceeds 14GB effective. Doesn't fit.
About DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 32B
DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 32B (32.5B) is a reasoning, coding, chat model. Distilled reasoning model with strong coding and chat capabilities.
View all DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 32B hardware options →About Apple M3 Pro (18GB Unified)
Apple M3 Pro (18GB Unified) has 18 GB at 150 GB/s. Available in MacBook Pro 14", MacBook Pro 16".
See all models Apple M3 Pro (18GB Unified) can run →Source: MLX performance estimates (2026-03-15)
Data last updated: 2026-03-15