Apple M3 Max meets the minimum VRAM requirement for Q4 inference of Qwen/Qwen2.5-0.5B-Instruct. Review the quantization breakdown below to see how higher precision settings impact VRAM and throughput.
Apple M3 Max can run Qwen/Qwen2.5-0.5B-Instruct with Q4 quantization. At approximately 56 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 | 56.44 tok/s | ✅ Fits comfortably |
| Q8 | 5GB | 128GB | 38.02 tok/s | ✅ Fits comfortably |
| FP16 | 11GB | 128GB | 18.68 tok/s | ✅ Fits comfortably |