Can the Apple M4 Max (128GB) run Qwen3.6 35B-A3B?

Apple M4 Max (128GB) × Qwen3.6 35B-A3B8K context
YesRuns fully on the GPU
Memory at FP1672.8 GB of 96 GB
Weights 72 GBKV cache 0.2 GBRuntime 0.6 GB
QuantFP16Full quality
Speed~55tokens per second
Max context256Kthe model's full window
  1. FP16
  2. Q8_0
  3. Q6_K
  4. Q5_K_M
  5. Q4_K_M
  6. Q3_K_M
  7. Q2_K

Yes. The Apple M4 Max (128GB) can run Qwen3.6 35B-A3B fully in unified memory at FP16 (full quality), using about 72.8 GB of the 96 GB available, at roughly 55 tokens/second.

Run it with Ollama

With Ollama installed, one command downloads and starts Qwen3.6 35B-A3B:

ollama run qwen3.6:35b

Ollama's default download is Q4_K_M (about 22.6 GB here). You have room for FP16, which is full quality: pick that GGUF in LM Studio or from Hugging Face.

New to this? Step-by-step setup for the Apple M4 Max (128GB)

Run it in the cloud

No Apple M4 Max (128GB)? Run Qwen3.6 35B-A3B in the cloud.

Rent a cloud GPU by the hour. No upfront cost, stop any time.

Memory needed by quantization

At 8,192 tokens of context. The black line marks the 96 GB the Apple M4 Max (128GB) can use. macOS lets the GPU use about 96 GB of the 128 GB unified memory by default.

QuantQualityMemoryFits?Speed
FP16Full quality72.8 GBFits~55 tok/s
Q8_0Near-lossless39 GBFits~103 tok/s
Q6_KExcellent30.3 GBFits~133 tok/s
Q5_K_MVery good26.4 GBFits~154 tok/s
Q4_K_MGood, most popular22.6 GBFits~180 tok/s
Q3_K_MNoticeably degraded18.4 GBFits~223 tok/s
Q2_KHeavily degraded14.3 GBFits~291 tok/s

Measured speed from real Apple M4 Max (128GB) owners

Tokens per second that people measured on their own Apple M4 Max (128GB), next to our estimate.

No one has measured Qwen3.6 35B-A3B on the Apple M4 Max (128GB) yet. The speeds above are estimates. Run the benchmark and yours becomes the first real number on this page.

Have an Apple M4 Max (128GB)? Add your real speed

One command times Qwen3.6 35B-A3B in your own Ollama, shows you exactly what it would send, and asks before sending anything. No sign-up, no personal data.

macOS and Linux

curl -fsSL https://gpufit.dev/bench.sh | sh -s -- qwen3.6:35b

Windows (PowerShell)

$env:GPUFIT_MODEL="qwen3.6:35b"; irm https://gpufit.dev/bench.ps1 | iex

How the benchmark works

Frequently asked questions

Can Apple M4 Max (128GB) run Qwen3.6 35B-A3B?

Yes. The Apple M4 Max (128GB) can run Qwen3.6 35B-A3B fully in unified memory at FP16 (full quality), using about 72.8 GB of the 96 GB available, at roughly 55 tokens/second.

How much VRAM does Qwen3.6 35B-A3B need?

About 22.6 GB at Q4_K_M with 8,192 tokens of context, and about 72.8 GB at full FP16 precision.

How fast is Qwen3.6 35B-A3B on the Apple M4 Max (128GB)?

Roughly 55 tokens per second at FP16, estimated from the Apple M4 Max (128GB)'s 546 GB/s memory bandwidth.