Apple M3 Max meets the minimum VRAM requirement for Q4 inference of Qwen/Qwen2-1.5B-Instruct. Review the quantization breakdown below to see how higher precision settings impact VRAM and throughput.
Apple M3 Max can run Qwen/Qwen2-1.5B-Instruct with Q4 quantization. At approximately 58 tokens/second, you can expect Good speed - acceptable for interactive use.
You have 125GB headroom, which is sufficient for system overhead and smooth operation.
| Quantization | VRAM needed | VRAM available | Estimated speed | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Q4 | 3GB | 128GB | 57.51 tok/s | ✅ Fits comfortably |
| Q8 | 5GB | 128GB | 37.66 tok/s | ✅ Fits comfortably |
| FP16 | 11GB | 128GB | 22.19 tok/s | ✅ Fits comfortably |