modelrigs

DeepSeek-R1-Distill 32B on Mac Studio M2 Max 96 GB

32.764B on 96 GB at 400 GB/s. Hardware details · Model details

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Yes. DeepSeek-R1-Distill 32B fits on Mac Studio M2 Max 96 GB at the recommended Q8_0 configuration, requiring approximately 37.1 GB at 8K context. Practical context capacity is 128K.
CompatibilityComfortable
Calculated fit
Yes
Calculated Uses under 80% of usable memory. Room for a long context and other work.
Recommended quantization
Q8_0
Calculated gguf
Memory required
37.1 GB
Calculated of 81.6 GB usable — 45%
Max practical context
128K
Calculated model supports 128K

Memory budget at 8K context

Model weights ⓘ
33.1 GB Calculated
KV cache ⓘ
2.0 GB Calculated
Runtime overhead ⓘ
2.0 GB Estimated
Total required
37.1 GB Calculated
Headroom ⓘ
44.5 GB Calculated
Highest-precision quantization that leaves headroom: uses 45% of usable memory at 8K context.
Unified memory: weights, KV cache and the OS share the same 96 GB pool. We assume 85% is addressable by the GPU, which matches a headless machine with the wired-memory limit raised.
Performance

Estimated performance · recommended Q8_0

Decode, prefill and TTFT below are estimates for Q8_0. We do not have a comparable Q8_0 measurement on this machine.

Estimated decode
—
Estimated Q8_0; calculated range
Estimated prefill
—
Estimated Q8_0; calculated range
Estimated TTFT at 8K
—
Estimated Q8_0; calculated range
Hardware load reference
—
Official spec hardware TDP; not this model run
No throughput figures for this configuration. We do not estimate performance for a model that cannot load.
How the estimate is calculated
  1. Decode: reading 32.8B active parameters at 8.50 bits/weight takes 124.33 ms at 400 GB/s x 70% achieved efficiency.
  • No FP16 compute figure for this hardware, so prefill cannot be estimated.
  • This is a calculated estimate, not a measurement. It assumes a single request, a short prompt, no speculative decoding and a warm model already resident in memory.

Estimator version estimator_v1. Stored with every estimated row so old estimates can be regenerated when the model improves.

Submit a benchmarkSubmissions stay pending until reviewed.
This model at other quantizations on this machine
QuantizationResidentDiskTotal neededUtilisationFitMax context
MLX 4-bit17.9 GB17.9 GB21.4 GB26%Comfortable128K
Q4_K_M19.1 GB19.1 GB22.6 GB28%Comfortable128K
Q5_K_M22.4 GB22.4 GB26.0 GB32%Comfortable128K
Q8_0recommended33.1 GB33.1 GB37.1 GB45%Comfortable128K
BF1661.0 GB61.0 GB65.9 GB81%Fits32K
Cost of running DeepSeek-R1-Distill 32B on this machineUnited States (federal) · C corporation · 8h/day
Monthly economic cost
$0
Calculated after tax
Codex/Claude Code
$100/mo
≈ $100/mo · local is $100 less
Net cash at purchase
$0
Calculated VAT not reclaimable
Total over 5 years
$0
Calculated after tax, after resale
Cost per USD/1M tokens
—
Calculated

The $100 comparison uses the Codex Pro 5x / Claude Max 5x plans. A fixed planning conversion is used for USD. This compares monthly spend only: subscriptions have usage limits, local hardware has different capabilities and constraints, and taxes or regional pricing may change the charged amount. Prices checked 7 September 2026.

Monthly breakdown

Depreciation
0 over 5 years, straight-line to a 0 residual
$0.00
Electricity
0.0 kWh/month at 0.140/kWh
$0.00
Monthly cost before tax$0.00
Electricity tax shield
Running costs are deductible business expenses
-$0.00
Monthly economic cost after tax$0.00

Three different numbers, deliberately

Cash cost
$0
Money that leaves the bank account on day one, net of reclaimable VAT.
Accounting depreciation
$0.00/month
$0 written down over 5 years to a $0 residual.
After-tax economic cost
$0.00/month
Depreciation plus running costs plus cost of capital, less the tax those deductions save. This is the figure to compare between machines.
Assumptions and sources (verified 2026-09-07)
VAT rate
0% Official spec
VAT recoverable
0% Official spec
Federal C-corporation estimate at the flat 21% rate. Pass-through entities should use the sole-proprietor estimate as a rougher proxy.
Effective deduction rate
21.00% Calculated
Headline marginal rate 21.00%.
Depreciation
5 years, straight-line Assumption
Residual value
$0 (30%) Assumption
Extrapolated from the three-year curve.
Electricity
$0.000/kWh Assumption
Average power draw
0 W Calculated
Load — for 20% of powered hours, idle 0 W for the rest — a machine that is on is not generating tokens the whole time.
Investment allowances
§179 100.0% Official spec
Worth $0 in total — first-year expensing that replaces later tax depreciation.
Cost of capital
not applied Assumption
Federal planning estimate only, not tax advice. State and local income tax, sales/use tax and incentives are excluded. It assumes 100% business use, a Section 179 election, enough business income to use it, and that the full annual limit remains available.
DeepSeek-R1-Distill 32B on other hardware
HardwareDecodePriceFit
NVIDIA DGX H200 (8x H200, 1,128 GB)~307–441 t/s$359,430 *Comfortable
Quad RTX 5090 workstation (4x 32 GB)~65.3–94 t/s$12,611 *Comfortable
Lenovo ThinkStation PX (4x RTX PRO 6000, 384 GB)~57–82 t/s$58,553 *Comfortable
RTX 5090 workstation (1x 32 GB)~55.4–79.7 t/s$3,332 *Comfortable
Dual RTX 5090 workstation (2x 32 GB)~43.3–62.3 t/s$5,854 *Comfortable
Dell Precision 7960 Rack (2x RTX PRO 6000, 192 GB)~39.7–57.1 t/s$36,663 *Comfortable
Nearest alternatives to the Mac Studio M2 Max 96 GB
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Compare Mac Studio M2 Max 96 GB against Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96 GB →