Qwen on Apple M3
Can I run Qwen3 235B-A22B on an Mac Studio M3 Ultra 256GB?
Yes. Qwen3 235B-A22B at Q4_K_M uses 134.8 GB of the 192.0 GB available on a Mac Studio M3 Ultra 256GB, and runs at about 24.7 tokens per second. You can push the context to 128K.
Runs comfortably
134.8 GB of 192.0 GB · 70%0192 GB
Weights
132.8 GB
KV cache
1.5 GB
Runtime overhead
0.5 GB
Qwen3 235B-A22B at Q4_K_M leaves 57.2 GB spare on a Mac Studio M3 Ultra 256GB. There is room to raise the context length or move up a quantisation level.
Generation24.7tok/s
Prompt processing541tok/s
Max context128Ktokens
KV per 1K tokens0GB
Every quantisation of Qwen3 235B-A22B on a Mac Studio M3 Ultra 256GB
Highlighted row is the highest quality that still fits at 8K context.
| Quantisation | bpw | Weights | Total | Verdict | Max ctx | tok/s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FP16 / BF16 | 16.00 | 437.9 GB | 439.9 GB | Won't fit | — | 1.42 |
| INT8 / W8A8 | 8.50 | 232.3 GB | 234.3 GB | Won't fit | — | 5.87 |
| Q8_0 (GGUF) | 8.50 | 232.3 GB | 234.3 GB | Won't fit | — | 5.87 |
| FP8 (E4M3) | 8.00 | 218.9 GB | 220.9 GB | Won't fit | — | 7.50 |
| Q6_K | 6.56 | 179.5 GB | 181.5 GB | Fits, but tight | 65K | 19.5 |
| Q5_K_M | 5.67 | 155.2 GB | 157.2 GB | Runs comfortably | 128K | 21.9 |
| Q5_K_S | 5.52 | 151.1 GB | 153.1 GB | Runs comfortably | 128K | 22.3 |
| Q4_K_M | 4.85 | 132.8 GB | 134.8 GB | Runs comfortably | 128K | 24.7 |
| Q4_K_S | 4.58 | 125.5 GB | 127.5 GB | Runs comfortably | 128K | 25.8 |
| Q4_0 | 4.55 | 124.7 GB | 126.7 GB | Runs comfortably | 128K | 25.9 |
| AWQ 4-bit | 4.25 | 118.0 GB | 120.0 GB | Runs comfortably | 128K | 27.0 |
| GPTQ 4-bit | 4.25 | 118.0 GB | 120.0 GB | Runs comfortably | 128K | 27.0 |
| MXFP4 | 4.25 | 118.0 GB | 120.0 GB | Runs comfortably | 128K | 27.0 |
| IQ4_XS | 4.25 | 116.5 GB | 118.5 GB | Runs comfortably | 128K | 27.2 |
| Q3_K_M | 3.91 | 107.2 GB | 109.2 GB | Runs comfortably | 128K | 28.9 |
| IQ3_M | 3.70 | 101.5 GB | 103.5 GB | Runs comfortably | 128K | 30.0 |
| IQ3_XXS | 3.06 | 84.1 GB | 86.1 GB | Runs comfortably | 128K | 34.2 |
| Q2_K | 2.63 | 72.4 GB | 74.4 GB | Runs comfortably | 128K | 37.7 |
| IQ2_XXS | 2.06 | 56.9 GB | 58.9 GB | Runs comfortably | 128K | 43.6 |
| IQ1_M | 1.75 | 48.4 GB | 50.4 GB | Runs comfortably | 128K | 47.6 |