Can the Apple M1 run Qwen3 14B?
Yes, with 16 GB or more. Qwen3 14B needs about 11 GB and the Apple M1 with 16 GB of unified memory leaves about 11 GB for models. Expect about 4 tok/s, slow, but it works. The 8 GB version doesn't have room.
ollama run qwen3:14bFirst time? Install Ollama, then paste that into a terminal.
Qwen3 14B needsAbout 11 GB
Apple M1 has8 or 16 GB unified memory
Bandwidth68 GB/s
Estimated speed~4 tok/s
By memory size
Each Apple M1 version
- 8 GB (about 5 GB usable)Too big
- 16 GB (about 11 GB usable)Slow ~4 tok/s
Want it faster?
Speed comes from memory bandwidth: the card reads all 9.3 GB of active weights for every token. On the Apple M1, Qwen3 8B runs at about 7 tok/s if you can trade some quality for speed. Cards that run Qwen3 14B faster:
How we estimate
Speed is roughly memory bandwidth divided by the weights read per token, calibrated on our own rack. Sizes are Ollama's default 4-bit downloads plus about 1.2 GB for context. Real results are usually within about a third. Measured it yourself? Send us the number.
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