← Everything the Apple M3 runsApple M3 · Qwen3 14B

Can the Apple M3 run Qwen3 14B?

Yes, with 16 GB or more. Qwen3 14B needs about 11 GB and the Apple M3 with 16 GB of unified memory leaves about 11 GB for models. Expect about 6 tok/s, slow, but it works. The 8 GB version doesn't have room.

ollama run qwen3:14b

First time? Install Ollama, then paste that into a terminal.

Qwen3 14B needsAbout 11 GB
Apple M3 has8 or 16 or 24 GB unified memory
Bandwidth100 GB/s
Estimated speed~6 tok/s
By memory size

Each Apple M3 version

  • 8 GB (about 5 GB usable)Too big
  • 16 GB (about 11 GB usable)Slow ~6 tok/s
  • 24 GB (about 16 GB usable)Slow ~6 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 M3, gpt-oss 20B runs at about 18 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.

Keep going

More about the Apple M3 and Qwen3 14B