Can Baichuan 13B run on Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB?

YES — Runs Great

B67Good

Estimated from fit model

Baichuan 13B needs ~32.8 GB VRAM. Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB has 69.1 GB. With Q5_K_M quantization, expect ~61 tok/s.

Runtime: llama.cppCapacity: RoomyBandwidth: HighStack: StandardBottleneck: Balanced

Operating mode

Choose the run profile you care about

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.

Capabilities:

Select quantization to explore

Q5_K_M (High quality) — 32.8 GB, 60.7 tok/s, Runs well

32.8 GB required69.1 GB available

47% VRAM used

Fit status

Runs well

Decode

60.7 tok/s

TTFT

3190 ms

Safe context

Memory

32.8 GB / 69.1 GB

Memory breakdown

Weights9.4 GB

KV Cache12.2 GB

Runtime0.9 GB

Headroom10.4 GB

See how fast it feels

See how fast it feelsBaichuan 13B on Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB
1st promptCold start — includes initialization
>Solve: If a train travels at 60 mph for 2.5 hours, how far does it go?
Let me work through this step by step.

Given information:
  - Speed = 60 mph (miles per hour)
  - Time  = 2.5 hours

Formula: Distance = Speed x Time

Calculation:
  Distance = 60 mph x 2.5 h
           = 150 miles

The train travels 150 miles.

Double-check: at 60 mph the train covers 60 miles each hour. In half an hour it covers 30 miles. So in 2.5 hours: 60 + 60 + 30 = 150 miles. Confirmed.
2nd promptWarm — model ready, no init overhead
>What if the train stops for 20 minutes halfway?
The stop doesn't change the total distance covered while moving, but it affects total trip time.

Breakdown:
  - First half: 1.25 hours at 60 mph = 75 miles
  - Stop: 20 minutes (no distance)
  - Second half: 1.25 hours at 60 mph = 75 miles

Total distance: 150 miles (same)
Total time: 2.5 h + 0.33 h = 2.83 hours
Average speed: 150 / 2.83 = 53 mph

The distance stays the same but average speed drops to 53 mph because of the stop.
Estimated: 60.7 tok/s decode · 3.2s TTFT (warm) · 152 tok/s prefill

What limits this setup

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.

Best improvement path

Performance by workload

Workload	Grade	Fit	Decode	TTFT	Context
Chat	B	Runs well	60.7 tok/s	1740 ms	8K
Coding	B	Runs well	60.7 tok/s	3190 ms	8K
Agentic Coding	A	Runs well	60.7 tok/s	4640 ms	8K
Reasoning	B	Runs well	60.7 tok/s	3770 ms	8K
RAG	A	Runs well	60.7 tok/s	5800 ms	8K

Inference speed

Baichuan 13B inference speed — tokens per second by GPU & Mac

Estimated decode speed (tokens/sec) for Baichuan 13B at Q5_K_M across popular GPUs and Apple Silicon, using the fastest local runtime per device. Fastest is RTX 5090 32GB at ~131 tok/s. Speed is memory-bandwidth bound, so cards that fit the whole model in VRAM run far faster than ones that offload to system RAM.

GPU / Mac	Memory	Quant	Speed (tok/s)	Fits?
RTX 5090 32GB	32 GB	Q5_K_M	130.8	Fits
RTX 4090 24GB	24 GB	Q5_K_M	61.0	Offloads
Mac Studio M3 Ultra 256GB	256 GB	Q5_K_M	60.7	Fits
RX 7900 XTX 24GB	24 GB	Q5_K_M	52.4	Offloads
Mac Studio M2 Ultra 128GB	128 GB	Q5_K_M	50.6	Fits
RTX 3090 24GB	24 GB	Q5_K_M	48.7	Offloads
Mac Studio M1 Ultra 128GB	128 GB	Q5_K_M	47.9	Fits
MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB	128 GB	Q5_K_M	33.0	Fits
MacBook Pro M4 Max 64GB	64 GB	Q5_K_M	33.0	Fits
MacBook Pro M3 Max 64GB	64 GB	Q5_K_M	26.2	Fits
MacBook Pro M1 Max 64GB	64 GB	Q5_K_M	24.0	Fits
RTX 4080 Super 16GB	16 GB	Q5_K_M	20.6	Too big
MacBook Pro M4 Pro 48GB	48 GB	Q5_K_M	20.2	Fits
RTX 4070 12GB	12 GB	Q5_K_M	7.2	Too big
RTX 3060 12GB	12 GB	Q5_K_M	4.5	Too big
RTX 4060 8GB	8 GB	Q5_K_M	3.2	Too big

Estimates for single-stream decoding at Q5_K_M; real tokens/sec varies with prompt length, context, batch size, and runtime build. Prompt processing (prefill) is faster than the decode figures shown here.

Quantization options

How Baichuan 13B (13B params) fits at each quantization level on Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB (69.1 GB usable).

Quant	Bits	VRAM	Quality	Fit
Q2_K	2	5.1 GB	Low	B56
Q3_K_S	3	6.4 GB	Low	B56
NVFP4	4	7.3 GB	Medium	B57
Q4_K_M	4	7.9 GB	Medium	B57
Q5_K_M	5	9.4 GB	High	B57
Q6_K	6	10.7 GB	High	B57
Q8_0	8	13.9 GB	Very High	B58
F16Best for your GPU	16	26.7 GB	Maximum	B60

Get started

Copy-paste commands to run Baichuan 13B on your machine.

Run

docker run --rm -it ghcr.io/ggerganov/llama.cpp:full \
  --hf-repo "baichuan-inc/Baichuan-13B-Chat" \
  --hf-file "Baichuan-13B-Chat-Q5_K_M.gguf" \
  -c 4096 -ngl 99

Frequently asked questions

Can Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB run Baichuan 13B?

Yes, Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB can run Baichuan 13B with a B grade (Runs well). Expected decode speed: 60.7 tok/s.

How much VRAM does Baichuan 13B need?

Baichuan 13B (13B parameters) requires approximately 32.8 GB of memory with Q5_K_M quantization.

What is the best quantization for Baichuan 13B?

The recommended quantization for Baichuan 13B is Q5_K_M, which balances quality and memory efficiency.

What speed will Baichuan 13B run at on Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB?

On Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB, Baichuan 13B achieves approximately 60.7 tokens per second decode speed with a time-to-first-token of 3190ms using Q5_K_M quantization.

Can Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB run Baichuan 13B for coding?

For coding workloads, Baichuan 13B on Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB receives a B grade with 60.7 tok/s and 8K context.

What context window can Baichuan 13B use on Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB?

On Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB, Baichuan 13B can safely use up to 8K tokens of context. The model's official context limit is 8K, but available memory constrains the safe maximum.

Is unified memory on Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB as fast as VRAM for Baichuan 13B?

Not always. Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB 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.

See all results for Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB See all hardware for Baichuan 13B

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