Rent a GPU

Can the Apple M3 Ultra (256GB) run Qwen3 8B?

Apple M3 Ultra (256GB) × Qwen3 8B8K context
YesRuns fully on the GPU
Memory at FP1618.2 GB of 192 GB
Weights 16.4 GBKV cache 1.2 GBRuntime 0.6 GB
QuantFP16Full quality
Speed~30tokens per second
Max context32Kthe 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 M3 Ultra (256GB) can run Qwen3 8B fully in unified memory at FP16 (full quality), using about 18.2 GB of the 192 GB available, at roughly 30 tokens/second.

Try other context lengths

Run it with Ollama

With Ollama installed, one command downloads and starts Qwen3 8B:

ollama run qwen3:8b

Ollama's default download is Q4_K_M (about 6.8 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 M3 Ultra (256GB)

Run it in the cloud

No Apple M3 Ultra (256GB)? Run Qwen3 8B in the cloud.

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

Rent a GPU on RunPodRent a GPU on Vast.ai

Memory needed by quantization

At 8,192 tokens of context. The black line marks the 192 GB the Apple M3 Ultra (256GB) can use. macOS lets the GPU use about 192 GB of the 256 GB unified memory by default.

QuantQualityMemoryFits?Speed
FP16Full quality18.2 GBFits~30 tok/s
Q8_0Near-lossless10.5 GBFits~56 tok/s
Q6_KExcellent8.5 GBFits~73 tok/s
Q5_K_MVery good7.6 GBFits~84 tok/s
Q4_K_MGood, most popular6.8 GBFits~99 tok/s
Q3_K_MNoticeably degraded5.8 GBFits~123 tok/s
Q2_KHeavily degraded4.9 GBFits~160 tok/s

Measured speed from real Apple M3 Ultra (256GB) owners

Tokens per second that people measured on their own Apple M3 Ultra (256GB), next to our estimate.

No one has measured Qwen3 8B on the Apple M3 Ultra (256GB) yet. The speeds above are estimates. Run the benchmark and yours becomes the first real number on this page.

Have an Apple M3 Ultra (256GB)? Add your real speed

One command times Qwen3 8B 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 -- qwen3:8b

Windows (PowerShell)

$env:GPUFIT_MODEL="qwen3:8b"; irm https://gpufit.dev/bench.ps1 | iex

How the benchmark works

GPUs that run Qwen3 8B comfortably

Models that run well on the Apple M3 Ultra (256GB)

Frequently asked questions

Can Apple M3 Ultra (256GB) run Qwen3 8B?

Yes. The Apple M3 Ultra (256GB) can run Qwen3 8B fully in unified memory at FP16 (full quality), using about 18.2 GB of the 192 GB available, at roughly 30 tokens/second.

How much VRAM does Qwen3 8B need?

About 6.8 GB at Q4_K_M with 8,192 tokens of context, and about 18.2 GB at full FP16 precision.

How fast is Qwen3 8B on the Apple M3 Ultra (256GB)?

Roughly 30 tokens per second at FP16, estimated from the Apple M3 Ultra (256GB)'s 819 GB/s memory bandwidth.