Snowflake Arctic Instruct on Apple M5 Ultra (512 GB)

Can the Apple M5 Ultra (512 GB) run Snowflake Arctic Instruct?

Yes, it runs great

Runs great. At Q4_K_M it needs about 324 GB of 384 GB usable, with an estimated speed of 59.6 tok/s.

Best quant: Q4_K_M
Generation speed: 59.6 tok/s
Prompt processing: 1,375 tok/s
First token (1K prompt): 0.7 s
Largest safe context: 4K

Best app to run it on the Apple M5 Ultra (512 GB)

On macOS

Docker Model Runner

Command line + local API · runs on llama.cpp, vLLM

Handy if you already work in Docker.

docker model run hf.co/Snowflake/snowflake-arctic-instruct

Text Generation WebUI

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 Snowflake Arctic Instruct

Original weights · Hugging Face

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

huggingface.co/Snowflake/snowflake-arctic-instruct (opens in a new tab)

No sign-in needed.

Links checked 1 day ago against Hugging Face, Ollama and GitHub.

How it’s rated

Quality 47Fair quality (C) · 47 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 76/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.: How capable the model itself is at Q4_K_M, 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 Ultra (512 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.	21.4 / 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 score	76.4 / 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 Ultra (512 GB)

Quant	Memory needed	Available	Speed	Runs	Quality	Download
`Q2_K`	223 GB	384 GB	88.6 tok/s	Runs great	35Basic quality (D) · 35 of 100: how capable the model is at Q2_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 69/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	All files (opens in a new tab)
`Q3_K_M`	266 GB	384 GB	73.5 tok/s	Runs great	42Fair quality (C) · 42 of 100: how capable the model is at Q3_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 73/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	All files (opens in a new tab)
`Q4_K_M`	324 GB	384 GB	59.6 tok/s	Runs great	47Fair quality (C) · 47 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 76/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	All files (opens in a new tab)
`Q5_K_M`	372 GB	384 GB	50.7 tok/s	Runs welltight fit	48Fair quality (C) · 48 of 100: how capable the model is at Q5_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 75/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	All files (opens in a new tab)
`Q6_K`	424 GB	384 GB	37.1 tok/s	Slowfar over GPU memory limit	49Fair quality (C) · 49 of 100: how capable the model is at Q6_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 55/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	All files (opens in a new tab)
`Q8_0`	539 GB	384 GB	—	Won't run	50Fair quality (C) · 50 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 6/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	All files (opens in a new tab)
`F16`	989 GB	384 GB	—	Won't run	50Fair quality (C) · 50 of 100: how capable the model is at F16, whatever it runs on. Match score 6/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	Original weights (opens in a new tab)

Memory figures assume 4K of context. Longer conversations or documents grow the KV cache.

Other hardware that runs it

47Fair quality (C) · 47 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 76/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. Apple M3 Ultra (512 GB) Q4_K_M · 43.5 tok/s · Runs great
35Basic quality (D) · 35 of 100: how capable the model is at Q2_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 55/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. Apple M3 Ultra (256 GB) Q2_K · 56.4 tok/s · Runs well (over GPU memory limit)
42Fair quality (C) · 42 of 100: how capable the model is at Q3_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 72/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. AMD Instinct MI325X Q3_K_M · 188 tok/s · Runs well (tight fit)
42Fair quality (C) · 42 of 100: how capable the model is at Q3_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 72/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. AMD Instinct MI350X Q3_K_M · 209 tok/s · Runs well (tight fit)
42Fair quality (C) · 42 of 100: how capable the model is at Q3_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 72/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. NVIDIA GB300 Grace Blackwell Ultra Desktop Superchip Q3_K_M · 211 tok/s · Runs well (tight fit)
42Fair quality (C) · 42 of 100: how capable the model is at Q3_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 64/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. AMD EPYC 7002 / 7003 series NAS (512 GB) Q3_K_M · 10.3 tok/s · Runs well

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.