Sponsored by Byond Boundrys Consulting - Empowering Ideas, Delivering Results
DeepSeek Advanced

DeepSeek-V3

DeepSeek-V3 is the original 671B/37B MoE checkpoint with 128K context. Its hosted API generation has been replaced by newer DeepSeek models.

Foundation ModelText Paid
In plain English

What is this model and why does it matter?

DeepSeek-V3 is the original 671B-total, 37B-active MoE model with 128K context released to the DeepSeek API in December 2024.

Historical benchmarkingMoE researchLarge-scale self-hostingDeepSeek model evolution studies
Model overview

DeepSeek-V3: features, use cases and important details

DeepSeek-V3 is DeepSeek’s original V3 mixture-of-experts checkpoint that entered deepseek-chat in December 2024.

Verified model facts

The official repository lists 671B total parameters, 37B active parameters and a 128K context window.

Current status

The hosted service has since moved through newer DeepSeek generations, while the original weights remain available.

Best fit

It remains useful for research, model-evolution comparisons and very large self-hosted deployments.

Limitations

It requires major infrastructure, uses the original DeepSeek Model License and should not be assigned current DeepSeek API prices.

Get started

How to use this model

  1. Download deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V3.
  2. Review the DeepSeek Model License.
  3. Provision distributed inference infrastructure.
  4. Use official DeepSeek-V3 inference guidance.
  5. Use newer DeepSeek models for new hosted API integrations.
Copy and try

Example prompts

  • Analyze this codebase and explain the main architectural risks.
  • Compare these technical approaches in detail.
  • Summarize a long specification and identify contradictions.
Capabilities

What it can do

  • 128K context
  • MoE inference
  • Coding
  • Reasoning
  • Multilingual generation
Best for

Practical use cases

  • Research
  • Historical comparison
  • Large-scale local inference
  • Coding experiments
Pricing

What does it cost?

Original V3 is no longer the DeepSeek API model. Historical token prices are cleared; the weights remain downloadable under the DeepSeek Model License.

Simple summaryThe original checkpoint is extremely large to self-host; its old API pricing is not current.

What stands out

  • Strong historical open-weight performance
  • 128K context
  • 37B active parameters per token

Things to consider

  • 671B total parameters
  • Original API generation replaced
  • Custom model license
Limitations

Important restrictions and trade-offs

  • Current DeepSeek API behavior and pricing do not represent this exact checkpoint
  • Large infrastructure requirements
  • Can hallucinate
SimplifyAITools verdict

Our editorial take

A historically important DeepSeek checkpoint, but new API integrations should use current V4 models.

References

Primary sources

  1. Open source 1 ↗
  2. Open source 2 ↗
  3. Open source 3 ↗
Keep exploring

Related AI models