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Mac · Apple Silicon

M3 Max (30-core GPU) with 36 GB: which local LLMs run?

With 36 GB of unified memory, the M3 Max (30-core GPU) gives the GPU about 24 GB by default (300 GB/s): enough for models up to about Mixtral 8x7B Instruct.

  • Unified memory36 GB
  • GPU usable~24 GB
  • Bandwidth300 GB/s
  • GPU cores30
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Unified memory is not VRAM: macOS reserves part of it. The limit can be raised with sudo sysctl iogpu.wired_limit_mb=…, at the cost of memory for apps. There is no offload to system RAM — it is the same memory.

CPU cores
14
GPU cores
30
Bandwidth
300 GB/s
Memory configurations
36 GB · 96 GB
Sold in
MacBook Pro 14, MacBook Pro 16
Released
October 2023

Official specData updated 24 days agoSource: Apple tech specs

What the M3 Max (30-core GPU) with 36 GB runs

M3 Max (30-core GPU) · 36 GB · 8K
gpt-oss-20bMXFP4 · 8K~12.8 GB · 34–77 tok/s estimateExcellent
Qwen3 14BQ8_0 · 8K~17.3 GB · 12–17 tok/s estimateExcellent
DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 14BQ8_0 · 8K~17.6 GB · 12–17 tok/s estimateExcellent
Qwen2.5 14B InstructQ8_0 · 8K~17.6 GB · 12–17 tok/s estimateExcellent
Phi-4 14BQ8_0 · 8K~17.4 GB · 12–17 tok/s estimateExcellent
Mistral Nemo 12B InstructQ8_0 · 8K~14.7 GB · 14–20 tok/s estimateExcellent
Gemma 3 12B ITQ8_0 · 8K~13.9 GB · 15–21 tok/s estimateExcellent
Gemma 2 9B ITQ8_0 · 8K~12.5 GB · 17–25 tok/s estimateExcellent
Qwen3 8BQ8_0 · 8K~10.3 GB · 20–30 tok/s estimateExcellent
Llama 3.1 8B InstructQ8_0 · 8K~10 GB · 21–31 tok/s estimateExcellent
DeepSeek R1 Distill Llama 8BQ8_0 · 8K~10 GB · 21–31 tok/s estimateExcellent
Qwen2.5 7B InstructQ8_0 · 8K~9 GB · 22–33 tok/s estimateExcellent
Mistral 7B Instruct v0.3Q8_0 · 8K~9 GB · 22–34 tok/s estimateExcellent
Gemma 3 4B ITQ8_0 · 8K~5.2 GB · 40–65 tok/s estimateExcellent
Qwen3 4BQ8_0 · 8K~6 GB · 36–57 tok/s estimateExcellent
Phi-4 Mini Instruct 3.8BQ8_0 · 8K~5.8 GB · 38–60 tok/s estimateExcellent
Llama 3.2 3B InstructQ8_0 · 8K~4.9 GB · 45–71 tok/s estimateExcellent
Qwen3 1.7BQ8_0 · 8K~3.5 GB · 70–120 tok/s estimateExcellent
Llama 3.2 1B InstructQ8_0 · 8K~2.3 GB · 113–190 tok/s estimateExcellent
Qwen3 0.6BQ8_0 · 8K~2.3 GB · 120–250 tok/s estimateExcellent
Mixtral 8x7B InstructQ3_K_M · 8K~21.4 GB · 24–34 tok/s estimateCompatible
Qwen3 32BQ4_K_M · 8K~22.1 GB · 9–14 tok/s estimateCompatible
DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 32BQ4_K_M · 8K~22.2 GB · 9–13 tok/s estimateCompatible
Qwen2.5 32B InstructQ4_K_M · 8K~22.2 GB · 9–13 tok/s estimateCompatible
Qwen2.5 Coder 32B InstructQ4_K_M · 8K~22.2 GB · 9–13 tok/s estimateCompatible
QwQ 32BQ4_K_M · 8K~22.2 GB · 9–13 tok/s estimateCompatible
Qwen3 30B-A3BQ5_K_M · 8K~22.6 GB · 37–60 tok/s estimateCompatible
Qwen3 Coder 30B-A3B InstructQ5_K_M · 8K~22.6 GB · 37–60 tok/s estimateCompatible
Gemma 3 27B ITQ5_K_M · 8K~20.8 GB · 9.5–14 tok/s estimateCompatible
Gemma 2 27B ITQ5_K_M · 8K~22.1 GB · 9.5–14 tok/s estimateCompatible
Mistral Small 3.2 24B InstructQ6_K · 8K~20.8 GB · 9.5–14 tok/s estimateCompatible
DeepSeek R1 (671B)Q8_0 · 8K~699 GB · No dataIncompatible
Qwen3 235B-A22BQ8_0 · 8K~247 GB · No dataIncompatible
gpt-oss-120bMXFP4 · 8K~63 GB · No dataIncompatible
Llama 4 Scout 17B-16E InstructQ8_0 · 8K~113 GB · No dataIncompatible
Qwen2.5 72B InstructQ8_0 · 8K~79.1 GB · No dataIncompatible
Llama 3.3 70B InstructQ8_0 · 8K~76.6 GB · No dataIncompatible
DeepSeek R1 Distill Llama 70BQ8_0 · 8K~76.6 GB · No dataIncompatible

For each model, the highest-precision quantization that runs entirely in fast memory; otherwise the one with the best result. Speeds are ranges; "estimate" unless a benchmark exists for this exact hardware.

EstimateData updated 24 days agoSource: Run LLM Locally engine

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MacBook Pro 14 M3 Max

M3 Max (30-core GPU) · 300 GB/s

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