Can Qwen3 48B A4B Savant Commander Distill 12X Closed Open Heretic Uncensored run on MacBook Pro M4 Max 36GB?

YES — With Q2_K

D38Poor
Estimated from fit model

Qwen3 48B A4B Savant Commander Distill 12X Closed Open Heretic Uncensored needs ~29.1 GB VRAM. MacBook Pro M4 Max 36GB has 25.9 GB. With Q2_K quantization, expect ~18 tok/s.

Runtime: llama.cppCapacity: OffloadBandwidth: LowStack: StandardBottleneck: Host offload
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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.

Qwen3 48B A4B Savant Commander Distill 12X Closed Open Heretic Uncensored at Q4_K_M needs 39.7 GB — too much for MacBook Pro M4 Max 36GB (25.9 GB). Runs at Q2_K (29.1 GB) with low quality.
Capabilities:

Select quantization to explore

Q4_K_M (Medium quality) 39.7 GB, exceeds 25.9 GB available
39.7 GB required25.9 GB available
153% VRAM needed

13.8 GB over capacity — needs offload or smaller quantization

Fit status

Too heavy

Decode

9.3 tok/s

TTFT

20723 ms

Safe context

4K

Memory

39.7 GB / 25.9 GB

Offload

30%

Memory breakdown

Weights29.3 GB
KV Cache5.6 GB
Runtime0.9 GB
Headroom3.9 GB

See how fast it feels

With memory offload — actual speed may be lower
See how fast it feelsQwen3 48B A4B Savant Commander Distill 12X Closed Open Heretic Uncensored on MacBook Pro M4 Max 36GB
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: 9.3 tok/s decode · 20.7s TTFT (warm) · 23 tok/s prefill

What limits this setup

It fits through host-memory offload, and offload is the main reason performance drops.

CPU or host-memory offload is active

About 10% of the working set spills out of accelerator memory, which usually hurts latency and sustained decode throughput.

Very little memory headroom

You can run the model, but there is not much room left for longer context, bigger batches, extra apps, or future model updates.

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

Remove offload with more accelerator memory

Prioritize a GPU or unified-memory tier that fits the whole model natively. Removing offload usually helps more than small compute gains.

Buy headroom, not only minimum fit

A slightly larger memory tier gives you safer context growth and makes the recommendation more future-proof.

Increase host RAM if you keep offloading

This setup may need roughly 2.1 GB of extra host RAM just for the offloaded portion, before OS and other tools.

Performance by workload

WorkloadGradeFitDecodeTTFTContext
ChatFToo heavy10.2 tok/s10394 ms4K
CodingFToo heavy9.3 tok/s20723 ms4K
Agentic CodingFToo heavy8.1 tok/s34939 ms4K
ReasoningFToo heavy9.3 tok/s24491 ms4K
RAGFToo heavy8.1 tok/s43674 ms4K

Quantization options

How Qwen3 48B A4B Savant Commander Distill 12X Closed Open Heretic Uncensored (48B params) fits at each quantization level on MacBook Pro M4 Max 36GB (25.9 GB usable).

QuantBitsVRAMQualityFit
Q2_KBest for your GPU
2
18.7 GB
LowC49
Q3_K_S
3
23.5 GB
LowF0
NVFP4
4
26.9 GB
MediumF0
Q4_K_M
4
29.3 GB
MediumF0
Q5_K_M
5
34.6 GB
HighF0
Q6_K
6
39.4 GB
HighF0
Q8_0
8
51.4 GB
Very HighF0
F16
16
98.4 GB
MaximumF0

Get started

Copy-paste commands to run Qwen3 48B A4B Savant Commander Distill 12X Closed Open Heretic Uncensored on your machine.

Run

lms load hf-davidau--qwen3-48b-a4b-savant-commander-distill-12x-closed-open-heretic-uncensored-gguf && lms server start

アップグレードオプション

Qwen3 48B A4B Savant Commander Distill 12X Closed Open Heretic Uncensoredを快適に動かすハードウェア

Frequently asked questions

Can MacBook Pro M4 Max 36GB run Qwen3 48B A4B Savant Commander Distill 12X Closed Open Heretic Uncensored?

Yes, MacBook Pro M4 Max 36GB can run Qwen3 48B A4B Savant Commander Distill 12X Closed Open Heretic Uncensored at Q2_K quantization (Very compromised (needs ~2.1 GB host RAM)). The recommended Q4_K_M requires 39.7 GB which exceeds available memory, but at Q2_K it needs only 29.1 GB. Expected decode speed: 18.0 tok/s.

How much VRAM does Qwen3 48B A4B Savant Commander Distill 12X Closed Open Heretic Uncensored need?

Qwen3 48B A4B Savant Commander Distill 12X Closed Open Heretic Uncensored (48B parameters) requires approximately 39.7 GB at Q4_K_M quantization. On MacBook Pro M4 Max 36GB, it fits at Q2_K using 29.1 GB.

What is the best quantization for Qwen3 48B A4B Savant Commander Distill 12X Closed Open Heretic Uncensored?

The recommended quantization is Q4_K_M, but on MacBook Pro M4 Max 36GB the best fitting quantization is Q2_K, which uses 29.1 GB.

What speed will Qwen3 48B A4B Savant Commander Distill 12X Closed Open Heretic Uncensored run at on MacBook Pro M4 Max 36GB?

On MacBook Pro M4 Max 36GB, Qwen3 48B A4B Savant Commander Distill 12X Closed Open Heretic Uncensored achieves approximately 18.0 tokens per second decode speed with a time-to-first-token of 10745ms using Q2_K quantization.

Can MacBook Pro M4 Max 36GB run Qwen3 48B A4B Savant Commander Distill 12X Closed Open Heretic Uncensored for coding?

For coding workloads, Qwen3 48B A4B Savant Commander Distill 12X Closed Open Heretic Uncensored on MacBook Pro M4 Max 36GB receives a F grade with 9.3 tok/s and 4K context.

What context window can Qwen3 48B A4B Savant Commander Distill 12X Closed Open Heretic Uncensored use on MacBook Pro M4 Max 36GB?

On MacBook Pro M4 Max 36GB, Qwen3 48B A4B Savant Commander Distill 12X Closed Open Heretic Uncensored can safely use up to 7K tokens of context at Q2_K quantization. The model's official context limit is —, but available memory constrains the safe maximum.

What should I upgrade first if Qwen3 48B A4B Savant Commander Distill 12X Closed Open Heretic Uncensored feels slow on MacBook Pro M4 Max 36GB?

Remove offload with more accelerator memory. Prioritize a GPU or unified-memory tier that fits the whole model natively. Removing offload usually helps more than small compute gains.

Is unified memory on MacBook Pro M4 Max 36GB as fast as VRAM for Qwen3 48B A4B Savant Commander Distill 12X Closed Open Heretic Uncensored?

Not always. MacBook Pro M4 Max 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.

See all results for MacBook Pro M4 Max 36GBSee all hardware for Qwen3 48B A4B Savant Commander Distill 12X Closed Open Heretic Uncensored
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