Apple M3 Pro meets the minimum VRAM requirement for Q4 inference of Qwen/Qwen3-8B-Base. Review the quantization breakdown below to see how higher precision settings impact VRAM and throughput.
Apple M3 Pro can run Qwen/Qwen3-8B-Base with Q4 quantization. At approximately 21 tokens/second, you can expect Moderate speed - useful for batch processing.
You have 32GB headroom, which is sufficient for system overhead and smooth operation.
| Quantization | VRAM needed | VRAM available | Estimated speed | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Q4 | 4GB | 36GB | 20.99 tok/s | ✅ Fits comfortably |
| Q8 | 9GB | 36GB | 14.14 tok/s | ✅ Fits comfortably |
| FP16 | 17GB | 36GB | 7.07 tok/s | ✅ Fits comfortably |