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Can the Apple M5 Pro (64 GB) run Nemotron Cascade 2 30B-A3B?

80Great quality (A) · 80 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 91/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.

Yes, it runs great

Runs great. At Q8_0 it needs about 38.0 GB of 48.0 GB usable, with an estimated speed of 40.0 tok/s.

Best quant
Q8_0
Generation speed
40.0 tok/s
Prompt processing
1,665 tok/s
First token (1K prompt)
0.6 s
Largest safe context
256K

Best app to run it on the Apple M5 Pro (64 GB)

On macOS

LM Studio

Desktop app · runs on llama.cpp, MLX · use the MLX build

  • Runs the MLX build, typically 35–90% faster than GGUF for a model with 3.5B active parameters on Apple silicon.
  • Point-and-click: search, download and chat in one window.

Open Nemotron Cascade 2 30B-A3B in LM Studio

  • MLX LM Runs the MLX build, typically 35–90% faster than GGUF for a model with 3.5B active parameters on Apple silicon.
  • Unsloth Desktop Runs the MLX build, typically 35–90% faster than GGUF for a model with 3.5B active parameters on Apple silicon.

How we choose: the files published for this model, your operating system and GPU, whether it fits fully in memory, and published speed tests (MLX vs llama.cpp on Apple silicon, vLLM vs llama.cpp vs Ollama on NVIDIA). Details.

Download Nemotron Cascade 2 30B-A3B

Recommended for the Apple M5 Pro (64 GB): Q8_0. Every other quantization has its own download link in the table below.

Quantized files · GGUF

Works in LM Studio, llama.cpp, Jan and Ollama. No sign-in needed.

Download the Q8_0 file (opens in a new tab)

huggingface.co/bartowski/nvidia_Nemotron-Cascade-2-30B-A3B-GGUF (opens in a new tab)

ollama run hf.co/bartowski/nvidia_Nemotron-Cascade-2-30B-A3B-GGUF:Q8_0

Original weights · Hugging Face

Full-precision files from NVIDIA, for fine-tuning, vLLM, Transformers.

huggingface.co/nvidia/Nemotron-Cascade-2-30B-A3B (opens in a new tab)

No sign-in needed.

Links checked 2 days ago against Hugging Face, Ollama and GitHub.

How it’s rated

Quality 80Great quality (A) · 80 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 91/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.
How capable the model itself is at Q8_0, from its editorial quality tier scaled by the quantization or precision. It’s the same on any hardware that runs this variant. Scale: A+ 85+ · A 70+ · B 55+ · C 40+ · D under 40.
Runs Runs great
How well it runs on the Apple M5 Pro (64 GB): speed, capped by how well it fits in memory. Runs great: 30+ tokens/s (or near the image, video or decision speed target) · Runs well: 10+ tokens/s · Slow: 3+ tokens/s · Very slow: under 3 · Won’t run: doesn’t fit even with offload. A tight fit or RAM offload caps it at Runs well; heavy offload caps it at Slow.

Match score

To order lists, each result also gets a match score out of 100 from four parts. It favors the most capable model that still runs well.

Model qualityEditorial quality tier of the model, scaled by the quantization or precision used.36.0 / 45
Memory fitFull marks when the model fits in the share of unified memory the GPU can use; fewer when it goes past that limit.25.0 / 25
SpeedGeneration speed against a 40 tokens/s target for LLMs, or render time against a target for image and video.15.0 / 15
Memory useRewards using the memory you have, so a bigger, better variant beats a tiny one that leaves most memory idle.15.0 / 15
Match score91.0 / 100

The match score orders results; it is not shown as a grade. Quality and Runs are the two ratings in the tables.

Every quantization on the Apple M5 Pro (64 GB)

Quant Memory needed Available Speed Runs Quality Download
Q2_K 17.1 GB 48.0 GB 103 tok/s Runs great 56Good quality (B) · 56 of 100: how capable the model is at Q2_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 73/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. GGUF (opens in a new tab)
Q3_K_M 20.0 GB 48.0 GB 86.3 tok/s Runs great 67Good quality (B) · 67 of 100: how capable the model is at Q3_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 79/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. GGUF (opens in a new tab)
Q4_K_M 23.8 GB 48.0 GB 70.7 tok/s Runs great 76Great quality (A) · 76 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 85/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. GGUF (opens in a new tab)
Q5_K_M 26.9 GB 48.0 GB 60.4 tok/s Runs great 77Great quality (A) · 77 of 100: how capable the model is at Q5_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 87/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. GGUF (opens in a new tab)
Q6_K 30.4 GB 48.0 GB 52.2 tok/s Runs great 79Great quality (A) · 79 of 100: how capable the model is at Q6_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 90/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. GGUF (opens in a new tab)
Q8_0 38.0 GB 48.0 GB 40.0 tok/s Runs great 80Great quality (A) · 80 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 91/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. GGUF (opens in a new tab)
F16 67.7 GB 48.0 GB — Won't run 80Great quality (A) · 80 of 100: how capable the model is at F16, whatever it runs on. Match score 10/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. GGUF · folder (opens in a new tab) Original weights (opens in a new tab)

Memory figures assume 8K of context. Longer conversations or documents grow the KV cache.

Other hardware that runs it

Estimates come from published hardware specs and our open formulas, not from running the model on your machine. Real speed varies with runtime, drivers and settings. Numbers marked “Measured” come from a linked benchmark.

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