Can the Apple M4 Pro (24GB) run Qwen3.6 35B-A3B?

Apple M4 Pro (24GB) × Qwen3.6 35B-A3B8K context
Yes, with heavy quantizationFits only at a low-quality quant
Memory at Q2_K14.3 GB of 16.1 GB
Weights 13.5 GBKV cache 0.2 GBRuntime 0.6 GB
QuantQ2_KHeavily degraded
Speed~146tokens per second
Max context93Ktokens that fit at Q2_K
  1. FP16
  2. Q8_0
  3. Q6_K
  4. Q5_K_M
  5. Q4_K_M
  6. Q3_K_M
  7. Q2_K

Only just. Qwen3.6 35B-A3B fits on the Apple M4 Pro (24GB) at Q2_K, which costs noticeable quality. Expect about 146 tokens/second. A card with more memory is a better experience.

Run it with Ollama

Ollama's default qwen3.6:35b download is Q4_K_M, which needs about 22.6 GB, more than the 16.1 GB available. Download the Q2_K GGUF instead (LM Studio lists quants per model), or try a smaller context length.

New to this? Step-by-step setup for the Apple M4 Pro (24GB)

Run it in the cloud

Want full quality? Run Qwen3.6 35B-A3B on a bigger rented GPU.

Rent a cloud GPU by the hour. No upfront cost, stop any time. Not sure whether to rent or buy? Compare the cost.

Memory needed by quantization

At 8,192 tokens of context. The black line marks the 16.1 GB the Apple M4 Pro (24GB) can use. macOS lets the GPU use about 16.1 GB of the 24 GB unified memory by default.

QuantQualityMemoryFits?Speed
FP16Full quality72.8 GBToo big—
Q8_0Near-lossless39 GBToo big—
Q6_KExcellent30.3 GBToo big—
Q5_K_MVery good26.4 GBToo big—
Q4_K_MGood, most popular22.6 GBToo big—
Q3_K_MNoticeably degraded18.4 GBToo big—
Q2_KHeavily degraded14.3 GBFits~146 tok/s

Measured speed from real Apple M4 Pro (24GB) owners

Tokens per second that people measured on their own Apple M4 Pro (24GB), next to our estimate.

No one has measured Qwen3.6 35B-A3B on the Apple M4 Pro (24GB) yet. The speeds above are estimates. Run the benchmark and yours becomes the first real number on this page.

Have an Apple M4 Pro (24GB)? 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 Pro (24GB) run Qwen3.6 35B-A3B?

Only just. Qwen3.6 35B-A3B fits on the Apple M4 Pro (24GB) at Q2_K, which costs noticeable quality. Expect about 146 tokens/second. A card with more memory is a better experience.

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 Pro (24GB)?

Roughly 146 tokens per second at Q2_K, estimated from the Apple M4 Pro (24GB)'s 273 GB/s memory bandwidth.