RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Workstation Edition
NVIDIA
ExcellentRuns Qwen3 235B-A22B Q4_K_M entirely in memory
Model · Alibaba Qwen
Qwen3 235B-A22B: VRAM and hardware requirements
At Q4_K_M with an 8K context, Qwen3 235B-A22B needs about 143 GB: a GPU with – or more runs it entirely in VRAM.
- Parameters235B
- Active22B
- Max context128K
- LicenseApache-2.0
Specifications
- Organization
- Alibaba Qwen
- Architecture
- qwen3_moe
- Released
- April 2025
- Layers
- 94
- Hidden size
- 4096
- Attention heads
- 64
- KV heads
- 4
- Head dimension
- 128
- Vocabulary
- 151,936
- KV cache per 1K tokens (f16)
- 0.184 GB
- Repository
- Qwen/Qwen3-235B-A22B
Official specData updated 24 days agoSource: Hugging Face config.json + model card
Quantizations and memory
| Quantization | File size | Memory needed | Minimum GPU memory | Quality |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BF16 | 438 GB | ~462 GB | – | Reference (unquantized) |
| Q8_0 | 233 GB | ~247 GB | – | Near-lossless |
| Q6_K | 180 GB | ~191 GB | – | Near-lossless |
| Q5_K_M | 155 GB | ~166 GB | – | Very good |
| Q4_K_MMost used | 132 GB | ~143 GB | – | Good — the usual choice |
| IQ4_XS | 117 GB | ~131 GB | – | Good — the usual choice |
| Q3_K_M | 105 GB | ~117 GB | – | Noticeable loss |
| Q2_K | 79.8 GB | ~93.4 GB | 96 GB | Significant loss |
File sizes: not available until imported from the model repository. Memory = weights (estimated from bits per weight) + KV cache + runtime overhead + safety margin. (BF16 ≈ 16 bpw, Q8_0 ≈ 8.5 bpw, Q6_K ≈ 6.57 bpw, Q5_K_M ≈ 5.7 bpw, Q4_K_M ≈ 4.9 bpw, IQ4_XS ≈ 4.46 bpw, Q3_K_M ≈ 4 bpw, Q2_K ≈ 3.17 bpw)
Q4, Q5 or Q8: how to choose a quantization
GPUs that run Qwen3 235B-A22B
| RTX 509032 GB · 64 GB RAM~141 GB · No data | Incompatible |
|---|---|
| RTX 409024 GB · 64 GB RAM~141 GB · No data | Incompatible |
| RTX 309024 GB · 64 GB RAM~141 GB · No data | Incompatible |
| RX 7900 XTX24 GB · 64 GB RAM~141 GB · No data | Incompatible |
| RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB16 GB · 64 GB RAM~141 GB · No data | Incompatible |
| RTX 5070 Ti16 GB · 64 GB RAM~141 GB · No data | Incompatible |
| RTX 508016 GB · 64 GB RAM~141 GB · No data | Incompatible |
| RTX 4060 Ti 16 GB16 GB · 64 GB RAM~141 GB · No data | Incompatible |
| RTX 4070 Ti SUPER16 GB · 64 GB RAM~141 GB · No data | Incompatible |
| RX 9070 XT16 GB · 64 GB RAM~141 GB · No data | Incompatible |
| RTX 3060 12 GB12 GB · 64 GB RAM~141 GB · No data | Incompatible |
| RTX 407012 GB · 64 GB RAM~141 GB · No data | Incompatible |
| RTX 507012 GB · 64 GB RAM~141 GB · No data | Incompatible |
| RTX 40608 GB · 64 GB RAM~141 GB · No data | Incompatible |
Macs that run Qwen3 235B-A22B
| M3 Ultra (80-core GPU) · 512 GBMac Studio~141 GB · 20–32 tok/s estimate | Excellent |
|---|---|
| M4 Max (40-core GPU) · 128 GBMacBook Pro 14, MacBook Pro 16~141 GB · No data | Incompatible |
| M3 Max (40-core GPU) · 128 GBMacBook Pro 14, MacBook Pro 16~141 GB · No data | Incompatible |
| M4 Pro (20-core GPU) · 64 GBMac mini, MacBook Pro 14~141 GB · No data | Incompatible |
| M4 Max (32-core GPU) · 36 GBMacBook Pro 14, MacBook Pro 16~141 GB · No data | Incompatible |
| M4 · 32 GBMacBook Air, MacBook Pro 14~141 GB · No data | Incompatible |
| M5 · 32 GBMacBook Pro 14~141 GB · No data | Incompatible |
| M3 · 24 GBMacBook Air, MacBook Pro 14~141 GB · No data | Incompatible |
EstimateData updated 24 days agoSource: Run LLM Locally engine
Limits in plain words
Qwen3 235B-A22B is a mixture-of-experts model: all 235B parameters must be in memory, but only 22B are read per token, so it generates much faster than a dense model of the same size.
The KV cache grows with context: at 32K it adds about 5.9 GB on top of the weights.
With under 8 GB of VRAM, use a smaller quantization or a smaller model of the same family.
Where to buy
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Mac Studio M3 Ultra
Apple Silicon
ExcellentRuns Qwen3 235B-A22B Q4_K_M entirely in memory
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Frequently asked questions
How much VRAM does Qwen3 235B-A22B need?
About 143 GB at Q4_K_M with an 8K context, including the KV cache and runtime overhead. At Q8_0 it needs about 247 GB. A longer context adds more: about 5.9 GB of KV cache at 32K.
Can Qwen3 235B-A22B run on a Mac?
Yes on a Mac whose GPU can use at least 141 GB, e.g. M3 Ultra (80-core GPU) 512 GB. macOS lets the GPU use about two thirds to three quarters of unified memory by default.