Qwen3.5 35B A3B Claude 4.6 Opus Reasoning Distilled vs DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B
Side-by-side comparison of VRAM requirements, quantization, context length, and hardware compatibility.
Specifications
| Qwen3.5 35B A3B Claude 4.6 Opus Reasoning Distilled | DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B | |
|---|---|---|
| Parameters | 36.0B | 1.5B |
| Context | 262K | — |
| Architecture | Qwen3_5MoeForConditionalGeneration | — |
| License | Apache 2.0 | MIT |
| Downloads | 2.5K | 32.8K |
| Released | Mar 2026 | Sep 2025 |
VRAM by Quantization: Qwen3.5 35B A3B Claude 4.6 Opus Reasoning Distilled vs DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B
| Quantization | Bits | Qwen3.5 35B A3B Claude 4.6 Opus Reasoning Distilled VRAM | DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B VRAM |
|---|---|---|---|
| IQ2_M | 2.70 | — | 0.6 GB |
| IQ2_XXS | 2.20 | — | 0.5 GB |
| IQ3_XXS | 3.10 | — | 0.6 GB |
| IQ4_XS | 4.30 | — | 0.9 GB |
| Q2_K | 3.40 | — | 0.7 GB |
| Q3_K_M | 3.90 | — | 0.8 GB |
| Q4_K_M | 4.80 | 21.9 GB | 1.0 GB |
| Q5_K_M | 5.70 | — | 1.2 GB |
| Q6_K | 6.60 | — | 1.4 GB |
| Q8_0 | 8.00 | — | 1.6 GB |
Verdict
DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B needs less VRAM at Q4_K_M (1.0 GB vs 21.9 GB), so it fits on smaller GPUs. DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B is the more widely downloaded of the two.
Frequently Asked Questions
- Which needs less VRAM, Qwen3.5 35B A3B Claude 4.6 Opus Reasoning Distilled or DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B?
At Q4_K_M, Qwen3.5 35B A3B Claude 4.6 Opus Reasoning Distilled needs 21.9 GB and DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B needs 1.0 GB, so DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B is the lighter option to run locally.
- What is the difference between Qwen3.5 35B A3B Claude 4.6 Opus Reasoning Distilled and DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B?
Qwen3.5 35B A3B Claude 4.6 Opus Reasoning Distilled is a 36.0B model from Jackrong (Qwen family), while DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B is a 1.5B model from litert-community (Qwen family). Compare their VRAM requirements above to see which fits your GPU or Mac.