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Can the Apple M1 Max (64 GB) run Qwen3-VL 30B-A3B Thinking?

88 ptsExcellent (S) · 88 of 100 points: Model quality 33.9/45, Memory fit 25.0/25, Speed 15.0/15, Memory use 14.8/15

Yes, it runs well

Runs well. At Q6_K it needs about 30.7 GB of 48.0 GB usable, with an estimated speed of 44.4 tok/s.

Best quant
Q6_K
Generation speed
44.4 tok/s
Prompt processing
1,954 tok/s
First token (1K prompt)
0.5 s
Largest safe context
179K

Download Qwen3-VL 30B-A3B Thinking

Quickest · Ollama

One command downloads a ready-to-run version and starts a chat.

ollama run qwen3-vl:30b-a3b-thinking

Get Ollama at ollama.com/download (opens in a new tab) · model page (opens in a new tab)

Quantized files · GGUF

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

huggingface.co/Qwen/Qwen3-VL-30B-A3B-Thinking-GGUF (opens in a new tab)

ollama run hf.co/Qwen/Qwen3-VL-30B-A3B-Thinking-GGUF

Original weights · Hugging Face

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

huggingface.co/Qwen/Qwen3-VL-30B-A3B-Thinking (opens in a new tab)

No sign-in needed.

Links checked 5 days ago against Hugging Face, Ollama and GitHub.

How the S grade is scored

Every result gets up to 100 points from four parts. The points decide the letter grade.

Model qualityEditorial quality tier of the model, scaled by the quantization or precision used.33.9 / 45
Memory fitFull marks when everything sits in GPU or unified memory; fewer when part spills to system RAM.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.14.8 / 15
Total88.6 / 10088 ptsExcellent (S) · 88 of 100 points: Model quality 33.9/45, Memory fit 25.0/25, Speed 15.0/15, Memory use 14.8/15

Grade scale: S 85+ · A 72+ · B 58+ · C 42+ · D 25+ · F under 25 points.

Every quantization on the Apple M1 Max (64 GB)

Quant Memory needed Available Speed Fit Grade · points Download
Q2_K 17.7 GB 48.0 GB 105 tok/s Runs well 72 ptsGreat (A) · 72 of 100 points: Model quality 23.9/45, Memory fit 25.0/25, Speed 15.0/15, Memory use 8.5/15 GGUF files (opens in a new tab)
Q3_K_M 20.5 GB 48.0 GB 82.8 tok/s Runs well 78 ptsGreat (A) · 78 of 100 points: Model quality 28.7/45, Memory fit 25.0/25, Speed 15.0/15, Memory use 9.8/15 GGUF files (opens in a new tab)
Q4_K_M 24.2 GB 48.0 GB 64.1 tok/s Runs well 84 ptsGreat (A) · 84 of 100 points: Model quality 32.5/45, Memory fit 25.0/25, Speed 15.0/15, Memory use 11.6/15 GGUF (opens in a new tab)
Q5_K_M 27.3 GB 48.0 GB 52.9 tok/s Runs well 86 ptsExcellent (S) · 86 of 100 points: Model quality 33.2/45, Memory fit 25.0/25, Speed 15.0/15, Memory use 13.1/15 GGUF files (opens in a new tab)
Q6_K 30.7 GB 48.0 GB 44.4 tok/s Runs well 88 ptsExcellent (S) · 88 of 100 points: Model quality 33.9/45, Memory fit 25.0/25, Speed 15.0/15, Memory use 14.8/15 GGUF files (opens in a new tab)
Q8_0 38.2 GB 48.0 GB 32.6 tok/s Runs well 87 ptsExcellent (S) · 87 of 100 points: Model quality 34.2/45, Memory fit 25.0/25, Speed 13.5/15, Memory use 15.0/15 GGUF (opens in a new tab)
F16 67.4 GB 48.0 GB — Won't run 10 ptsWon't run (F) · 10 of 100 points: Model quality 10.3/45, Memory fit 0.0/25, Speed 0.0/15, Memory use 0.0/15 GGUF · part 1 of 2 (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.