Qwen on Apple M4
Can I run Qwen3 235B-A22B on an Mac Studio M4 Max 128GB?
Not at Q4_K_M — it needs 134.8 GB against 96.0 GB available. Drop to IQ3_XXS and it fits, at about 27.3 tokens per second.
Won't fit
134.8 GB of 96.0 GB · 140%0140 GB
Weights
132.8 GB
KV cache
1.5 GB
Runtime overhead
0.5 GB
Over the limit
38.8 GB
Short by 38.8 GB. You can run it with 66 of 94 layers on the Mac Studio M4 Max 128GB and the rest in system RAM, at roughly 7.42 tok/s — usable for batch work, painful for chat. A smaller quantisation or a shorter context is usually the better trade.
Generation7.42tok/s
Prompt processing322tok/s
Max context0tokens
KV per 1K tokens0GB
Every quantisation of Qwen3 235B-A22B on a Mac Studio M4 Max 128GB
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 | — | 1.19 |
| INT8 / W8A8 | 8.50 | 232.3 GB | 234.3 GB | Won't fit | — | 2.73 |
| Q8_0 (GGUF) | 8.50 | 232.3 GB | 234.3 GB | Won't fit | — | 2.73 |
| FP8 (E4M3) | 8.00 | 218.9 GB | 220.9 GB | Won't fit | — | 2.97 |
| Q6_K | 6.56 | 179.5 GB | 181.5 GB | Won't fit | — | 4.10 |
| Q5_K_M | 5.67 | 155.2 GB | 157.2 GB | Won't fit | — | 5.28 |
| Q5_K_S | 5.52 | 151.1 GB | 153.1 GB | Won't fit | — | 5.62 |
| Q4_K_M | 4.85 | 132.8 GB | 134.8 GB | Won't fit | — | 7.42 |
| Q4_K_S | 4.58 | 125.5 GB | 127.5 GB | Won't fit | — | 8.55 |
| Q4_0 | 4.55 | 124.7 GB | 126.7 GB | Won't fit | — | 8.60 |
| AWQ 4-bit | 4.25 | 118.0 GB | 120.0 GB | Won't fit | — | 9.98 |
| GPTQ 4-bit | 4.25 | 118.0 GB | 120.0 GB | Won't fit | — | 9.98 |
| MXFP4 | 4.25 | 118.0 GB | 120.0 GB | Won't fit | — | 9.98 |
| IQ4_XS | 4.25 | 116.5 GB | 118.5 GB | Won't fit | — | 10.4 |
| Q3_K_M | 3.91 | 107.2 GB | 109.2 GB | Won't fit | — | 13.7 |
| IQ3_M | 3.70 | 101.5 GB | 103.5 GB | Won't fit | — | 17.2 |
| IQ3_XXS | 3.06 | 84.1 GB | 86.1 GB | Runs comfortably | 62K | 27.3 |
| Q2_K | 2.63 | 72.4 GB | 74.4 GB | Runs comfortably | 126K | 30.3 |
| IQ2_XXS | 2.06 | 56.9 GB | 58.9 GB | Runs comfortably | 128K | 35.5 |
| IQ1_M | 1.75 | 48.4 GB | 50.4 GB | Runs comfortably | 128K | 39.2 |