Can the Apple M4 Pro (48GB) run Qwen3 14B?

Apple M4 Pro (48GB) × Qwen3 14B8K context
YesRuns fully on the GPU
Memory at FP1631.5 GB of 36 GB
Weights 29.6 GBKV cache 1.3 GBRuntime 0.6 GB
QuantFP16Full quality
Memory31.5 GBof 36 GB usable
Speed~6tokens per second
  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 Pro (48GB) can run Qwen3 14B fully in unified memory at FP16 (full quality), using about 31.5 GB of the 36 GB available, at roughly 6 tokens/second.

Run it with Ollama

With Ollama installed, one command downloads and starts Qwen3 14B:

ollama run qwen3:14b

Ollama's default download is Q4_K_M (about 10.9 GB here). You have room for FP16, which is full quality: pick that GGUF in LM Studio or from Hugging Face.

Run it in the cloud

No Apple M4 Pro (48GB)? Run Qwen3 14B 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 36 GB the Apple M4 Pro (48GB) can use. macOS lets the GPU use about 36 GB of the 48 GB unified memory by default.

QuantQualityMemoryFits?Speed
FP16Full quality31.5 GBFits~6 tok/s
Q8_0Near-lossless17.7 GBFits~10 tok/s
Q6_KExcellent14.1 GBFits~13 tok/s
Q5_K_MVery good12.5 GBFits~16 tok/s
Q4_K_MGood, most popular10.9 GBFits~18 tok/s
Q3_K_MNoticeably degraded9.2 GBFits~23 tok/s
Q2_KHeavily degraded7.5 GBFits~30 tok/s

Frequently asked questions

Can Apple M4 Pro (48GB) run Qwen3 14B?

Yes. The Apple M4 Pro (48GB) can run Qwen3 14B fully in unified memory at FP16 (full quality), using about 31.5 GB of the 36 GB available, at roughly 6 tokens/second.

How much VRAM does Qwen3 14B need?

About 10.9 GB at Q4_K_M with 8,192 tokens of context, and about 31.5 GB at full FP16 precision.

How fast is Qwen3 14B on the Apple M4 Pro (48GB)?

Roughly 6 tokens per second at FP16, estimated from the Apple M4 Pro (48GB)'s 273 GB/s memory bandwidth.