Qwen 3 4B needs ~9.4 GB VRAM. MacBook Pro M3 Pro 36GB has 25.9 GB. With Q4_K_M quantization, expect ~48 tok/s.
Operating mode
Interactive favors responsiveness, while light API and scale-out lean harder on serving readiness. The fit stays the same, but the recommendation lens changes.
Current mode
Balanced
Balanced for general local use. Keeps the ranking neutral across personal and serving workflows.
Select quantization to explore
Fit status
Runs well
Decode
48.2 tok/s
TTFT
4013 ms
Safe context
33K
Memory
9.4 GB / 25.9 GB
This setup is broadly balanced for this model.
Shared-memory contention still exists
The OS, browser, and inference runtime all compete for the same physical memory pool, so real-world headroom is less forgiving than raw capacity suggests.
| Workload | Grade | Fit | Decode | TTFT | Context |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chat | A | Runs well | 48.2 tok/s | 2189 ms | 33K |
| Coding | A | Runs well | 48.2 tok/s | 4013 ms | 33K |
| Agentic Coding | A | Runs well | 48.2 tok/s | 5837 ms | 33K |
| Reasoning | A | Runs well | 48.2 tok/s | 4743 ms | 33K |
| RAG | A | Runs well | 44.9 tok/s | 7844 ms | 33K |
How Qwen 3 4B (4B params) fits at each quantization level on MacBook Pro M3 Pro 36GB (25.9 GB usable).
| Quant | Bits | VRAM | Quality | Fit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Q2_K | 2 | 1.6 GB | Low | A75 |
Q3_K_S | 3 | 2.0 GB | Low | A75 |
NVFP4 | 4 |
Copy-paste commands to run Qwen 3 4B on your machine.
Run
ollama run qwen3:4bYour hardware
| Model | Params | Grade | Decode | Capabilities |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Qwen3-Coder 30B A3B Instruct | 30.5B | S | 16.6 tok/s | |
| Qwen 3.5 27B | 27B | S | 7.2 tok/s |
Yes, MacBook Pro M3 Pro 36GB can run Qwen 3 4B with a A grade (Runs well). Expected decode speed: 48.2 tok/s.
Qwen 3 4B (4B parameters) requires approximately 9.4 GB of memory with Q4_K_M quantization.
The recommended quantization for Qwen 3 4B is Q4_K_M, which balances quality and memory efficiency.
On MacBook Pro M3 Pro 36GB, Qwen 3 4B achieves approximately 48.2 tokens per second decode speed with a time-to-first-token of 4013ms using Q4_K_M quantization.
For coding workloads, Qwen 3 4B on MacBook Pro M3 Pro 36GB receives a A grade with 48.2 tok/s and 33K context.
On MacBook Pro M3 Pro 36GB, Qwen 3 4B can safely use up to 33K tokens of context. The model's official context limit is 33K, but available memory constrains the safe maximum.
Paste this snippet into any page to show a live fit card.
<iframe src="https://willitrunai.com/embed/qwen-3-4b-on-m3-pro-36gb" width="400" height="180" frameborder="0" style="border:none;border-radius:12px;overflow:hidden;" title="Will It Run AI — fit result"></iframe>
Preview:
2.2 GB |
| Medium |
| A75 |
Q4_K_M | 4 | 2.4 GB | Medium | A75 |
Q5_K_M | 5 | 2.9 GB | High | A75 |
Q6_K | 6 | 3.3 GB | High | A76 |
Q8_0 | 8 | 4.3 GB | Very High | A76 |
F16Best for your GPU | 16 | 8.2 GB | Maximum | A78 |
| Qwen 3.6 27B | 27B | S | 5.5 tok/s |
| Qwen 3.6 35B A3B | 35B | A | 12.1 tok/s |
| Qwen3-VL 30B A3B Instruct | 30B | S | 17.1 tok/s |
Not always. MacBook Pro M3 Pro 36GB can often fit larger models thanks to unified memory, but a discrete GPU with dedicated high-bandwidth VRAM may still decode faster once the model fits. For this combination, the important distinction is capacity versus sustained throughput.