Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct needs ~299.2 GB but MacBook Air M3 24GB only has 17.3 GB. Try a smaller quantization or lighter model.
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
281.9 GB over capacity — needs offload or smaller quantization
Fit status
Too heavy
Decode
2.0 tok/s
TTFT
96800 ms
Safe context
4K
Memory
299.2 GB / 17.3 GB
Offload
90%
Usable shared or unified memory is the main blocker for this model.
Not enough usable memory
The model needs 299.2 GB, but this setup only exposes 17.3 GB of usable shared or unified memory.
Move to a larger memory pool
A larger unified-memory SKU or a discrete high-bandwidth GPU is the cleanest way to make this model practical.
| Workload | Grade | Fit | Decode | TTFT | Context |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chat | F | Too heavy | 2.0 tok/s | 52800 ms | 4K |
| Coding | F | Too heavy | 2.0 tok/s | 96800 ms | 4K |
| Agentic Coding | F | Too heavy | 2.0 tok/s | 140800 ms | 4K |
| Reasoning | F | Too heavy | 2.0 tok/s | 114400 ms | 4K |
| RAG | F | Too heavy | 2.0 tok/s | 176000 ms | 4K |
How Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct (480B params) fits at each quantization level on MacBook Air M3 24GB (17.3 GB usable).
| Quant | Bits | VRAM | Quality | Fit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Q2_K | 2 | 187.2 GB | Low | F0 |
Q3_K_S | 3 | 235.2 GB | Low | F0 |
NVFP4 | 4 |
Upgrade options
No, Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct requires more memory than MacBook Air M3 24GB provides.
Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct (480B parameters) requires approximately 299.2 GB of memory with Q4_K_M quantization.
The recommended quantization for Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct is Q4_K_M, which balances quality and memory efficiency.
On MacBook Air M3 24GB, Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct achieves approximately 2.0 tokens per second decode speed with a time-to-first-token of 96800ms using Q4_K_M quantization.
For coding workloads, Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct on MacBook Air M3 24GB receives a F grade with 2.0 tok/s and 4K context.
On MacBook Air M3 24GB, Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct can safely use up to 4K tokens of context. The model's official context limit is 256K, 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-coder-480b-a35b-on-m3-air-24gb" width="400" height="180" frameborder="0" style="border:none;border-radius:12px;overflow:hidden;" title="Will It Run AI — fit result"></iframe>
Preview:
268.8 GB |
| Medium |
| F0 |
Q4_K_M | 4 | 292.8 GB | Medium | F0 |
Q5_K_M | 5 | 345.6 GB | High | F0 |
Q6_K | 6 | 393.6 GB | High | F0 |
Q8_0 | 8 | 513.6 GB | Very High | F0 |
F16 | 16 | 984.0 GB | Maximum | F0 |
Move to a larger memory pool. A larger unified-memory SKU or a discrete high-bandwidth GPU is the cleanest way to make this model practical.
Not always. MacBook Air M3 24GB 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.
