Macs
Which AI models run on the M3 Pro (36 GB)?
The M3 Pro (36 GB) has 36 GB of memory, about 24 GB of it usable for a model, and 150 GB/s of memory bandwidth. 83 of the 110 models in our catalog run on it at 4-bit or better.
Data as of 2 November 2026 · Vendor specs
36 GBmemory
~24 GB usable for a model
150 GB/sbandwidth, sets the speed
83models run at 4-bit or better
Models that run on it
| Model | Best build | Memory | Speed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Qwen3.6-35B-A3B35B MoE | Q4_K_M | 24 GB | ~49 tok/s ModelFit est. |
| Gemma 4 31B30.7B | Q4_K_M | 21 GB | ~6.5 tok/s slow ModelFit est. |
| Qwen3-Coder-30B-A3B30.5B MoE | Q4_K_M | 20 GB | ~36 tok/s ModelFit est. |
| Nemotron 3 Nano 30B-A3B30B MoE | Q4_K_M | 19.6 GB | ~45 tok/s our est. |
| Qwen3.8-27B27.3B | Q4_K_M | 17.9 GB | ~8.1 tok/s slow ModelFit est. |
| Gemma 4 26B-A4B25.2B MoE | Q4_K_M | 17.4 GB | ~31 tok/s ModelFit est. |
| gpt-oss-20b21B MoE | MXFP4 | 15.1 GB | ~31 tok/s ModelFit est. |
| Nemotron Nano 9B v29B | Q6_K | 8.6 GB | ~11 tok/s our est. |
| Qwen3.5 9B Instruct9B | Q8_0 | 12.0 GB | ~15 tok/s ModelFit est. |
| Qwen2.5 7B Instruct7B | Q4_K_M | 6.6 GB | ~28 tok/s ModelFit est. |
| Gemma 3 4B Instruct4B | Q8_0 | 5.0 GB | ~29 tok/s ModelFit est. |
| Sage-A1.535.95B | Q4_K_M | 23 GB | ~49 tok/s ModelFit est. |
| Qwen3.5 35B-A3B Instruct35B MoE | Q4_K_M | 21 GB | ~51 tok/s ModelFit est. |
| Ornith 1.0 35B35B | Q4_K_M | 23 GB | ~51 tok/s ModelFit est. |
| Nanbeige4.3 33B33.1B | Q4_K_M | 22 GB | ~6.2 tok/s slow ModelFit est. |
| Laguna XS 2.133B | Q4_K_M | 22 GB | ~46 tok/s ModelFit est. |
| Qwen3 32B32B | Q4_K_M | 22 GB | ~6.3 tok/s slow ModelFit est. |
| DeepSeek-R1 Distill Qwen 32B32B | Q4_K_M | 21 GB | ~6.4 tok/s slow ModelFit est. |
| Olmo 3.1 32B Instruct32B | Q4_K_M | 21 GB | ~6.4 tok/s slow ModelFit est. |
| Qwen3 30B30B | Q4_K_M | 24 GB | ~36 tok/s ModelFit est. |
| Cohere North Mini Code30B | Q4_K_M | 20 GB | no estimate |
| Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B-A3B30B MoE | IQ4_XS | 20 GB | ~44 tok/s our est. |
| GLM-4.7-Flash 30B-A3B30B MoE | Q4_K_M | 20 GB | ~34 tok/s ModelFit est. |
| Granite Switch 4.1 30B30B | Q4_K_M | 23 GB | ~5.9 tok/s slow ModelFit est. |
| Muse Glimmer 30B29.8B | Q4_K_M | 18.3 GB | ~8.1 tok/s slow ModelFit est. |
| Granite 4.2 30B29.3B | Q4_K_M | 17.9 GB | ~7.0 tok/s slow ModelFit est. |
| AREX-2 27B27.4B | Q4_K_M | 18.6 GB | ~7.9 tok/s slow ModelFit est. |
| Gemma 2 27B Instruct27B | Q4_K_M | 23 GB | ~7.2 tok/s slow ModelFit est. |
| Gemma 3 27B Instruct27B | Q4_K_M | 23 GB | ~7.5 tok/s slow ModelFit est. |
| Qwen3.5 27B Instruct27B | Q4_K_M | 17.4 GB | ~8.2 tok/s slow ModelFit est. |
| Qwen3.6 27B27B | Q4_K_M | 19.4 GB | ~8.0 tok/s slow ModelFit est. |
| Jebadiah 27B27B | Q4_K_M | 18.2 GB | ~8.1 tok/s slow ModelFit est. |
| Mistral Small 3.124B | Q4_K_M | 16.4 GB | ~5.5 tok/s slow our est. |
| LFM2 24B-A2B Instruct24B MoE | Q4_K_M | 15.3 GB | ~55 tok/s ModelFit est. |
| Devstral Small 2 24B24B | Q4_K_M | 16.6 GB | ~8.5 tok/s slow ModelFit est. |
| Mistral Small 22B22B | Q4_K_M | 18.4 GB | ~9.7 tok/s slow ModelFit est. |
| Qwen2.5 14B Instruct14B | Q4_K_M | 12.3 GB | ~14 tok/s ModelFit est. |
| Phi-3 Medium 14B14B | Q4_K_M | 12.3 GB | ~7.5 tok/s slow our est. |
| Phi-4 14B14B | Q4_K_M | 12.8 GB | ~14 tok/s ModelFit est. |
| Qwen2.5 Coder 14B14B | Q4_K_M | 12.3 GB | ~14 tok/s ModelFit est. |
| Qwen3 14B14B | Q4_K_M | 12.3 GB | ~14 tok/s ModelFit est. |
| DeepSeek-R1 Distill Qwen 14B14B | Q4_K_M | 12.3 GB | ~14 tok/s ModelFit est. |
| Ministral 3 14B13.5B | Q4_K_M | 10.3 GB | ~14 tok/s ModelFit est. |
| Mellum2.1 12B-A2.5B Thinking12.1B MoE | Q4_K_M | 9.3 GB | ~49 tok/s our est. |
| Mistral Nemo 12B12B | Q8_0 | 13.4 GB | ~10 tok/s ModelFit est. |
| Gemma 3 12B Instruct12B | Q4_K_M | 10.7 GB | ~16 tok/s ModelFit est. |
| Gemma 4 12B12B | Q4_K_M | 9.2 GB | ~16 tok/s ModelFit est. |
| GLM-4-9B-Chat9.4B | Q8_0 | 11.2 GB | ~14 tok/s ModelFit est. |
| Gemma 2 9B Instruct9B | Q4_K_M | 8.2 GB | ~18 tok/s ModelFit est. |
| Ornith 1.0 9B9B | Q4_K_M | 6.7 GB | ~25 tok/s ModelFit est. |
| MiMo-V2.6-Distill-Qwen-9B9B | Q4_K_M | 6.9 GB | ~24 tok/s ModelFit est. |
| Jebadiah 9B9B | Q8_0 | 11.0 GB | ~15 tok/s ModelFit est. |
| Granite 4.2 8B8.8B | Q4_K_M | 6.1 GB | ~22 tok/s ModelFit est. |
| Granite Switch 4.1 8B8.8B | Q4_K_M | 7.6 GB | ~18 tok/s ModelFit est. |
| MiniCPM-V 4.5 8B8.7B | Q4_K_M | 6.8 GB | ~24 tok/s ModelFit est. |
| Ministral 3 8B8.4B | Q4_K_M | 7.1 GB | ~21 tok/s ModelFit est. |
| LFM2.5 8B-A1B8.3B MoE | Q4_K_M | 6.6 GB | ~73 tok/s ModelFit est. |
| Llama 3.1 8B Instruct8B | Q8_0 | 9.2 GB | ~15 tok/s ModelFit est. |
| Qwen3 8B8B | Q8_0 | 9.3 GB | ~15 tok/s ModelFit est. |
| Granite 4.1 8B Instruct8B | Q4_K_M | 6.6 GB | ~21 tok/s ModelFit est. |
| Mistral 7B Instruct7B | Q8_0 | 8.4 GB | ~16 tok/s ModelFit est. |
| Qwen2.5 Coder 7B7B | Q4_K_M | 6.6 GB | ~28 tok/s ModelFit est. |
| DeepSeek-R1 Distill Qwen 7B7B | Q8_0 | 8.7 GB | ~17 tok/s ModelFit est. |
| Gemma 4 E4B4.5B | Q8_0 | 8.7 GB | ~25 tok/s ModelFit est. |
| Qwen3.5 4B Instruct4B | Q8_0 | 5.4 GB | ~28 tok/s ModelFit est. |
| NVIDIA Nemotron 3.5 Bolt E4B4B | Q4_K_M | 9.1 GB | ~32 tok/s ModelFit est. |
| Phi-3 Mini 3.8B3.8B | Q4_K_M | 4.3 GB | ~26 tok/s our est. |
| Phi-4 Mini 3.8B3.8B | Q8_0 | 4.9 GB | ~27 tok/s ModelFit est. |
| Granite 4.2 3B3.7B | Q4_K_M | 3.2 GB | ~51 tok/s ModelFit est. |
| Ministral 3 3B3.4B | Q4_K_M | 4.1 GB | ~37 tok/s ModelFit est. |
| Qwen2.5 3B Instruct3B | Q4_K_M | 3.6 GB | ~59 tok/s ModelFit est. |
| Llama 3.2 3B Instruct3B | Q4_K_M | 3.6 GB | ~49 tok/s ModelFit est. |
| Granite 4.1 3B Instruct3B | Q4_K_M | 3.0 GB | ~51 tok/s ModelFit est. |
| Gemma 4 E2B2.3B | Q8_0 | 5.7 GB | ~59 tok/s ModelFit est. |
| Gemma 2 2B Instruct2B | Q4_K_M | 2.8 GB | ~57 tok/s ModelFit est. |
| Qwen3.5 2B Instruct2B | Q4_K_M | 2.8 GB | ~59 tok/s ModelFit est. |
| LFM3 1.7B1.73B | Q4_K_M | 2.1 GB | ~100 tok/s ModelFit est. |
| Qwen2.5 1.5B Instruct1.5B | Q4_K_M | 2.5 GB | ~104 tok/s ModelFit est. |
| Llama 3.2 1B Instruct1B | Q4_K_M | 2.0 GB | ~119 tok/s ModelFit est. |
| Gemma 3 1B Instruct1B | Q8_0 | 2.0 GB | ~105 tok/s ModelFit est. |
| Qwen3.5 0.8B Instruct0.8B | Q4_K_M | 1.8 GB | ~129 tok/s ModelFit est. |
| Qwen2.5 0.5B Instruct0.5B | Q4_K_M | 1.8 GB | ~216 tok/s ModelFit est. |
| SmolLM2 360M0.36B | Q4_K_M | 1.5 GB | ~124 tok/s ModelFit est. |
Speeds come from ModelFit's estimates (CC BY 4.0) where it covers the model, otherwise from our bandwidth formula. Method
Fits only at 3-bit or lower
Too big for this machine
Flint 40B-A2.5B (24 GB), Poolside Laguna XS.2 (25 GB), NVIDIA Nemotron Cascade 2 30B-A3B (26 GB), Mixtral 8x7B Instruct (32 GB), Llama 3.3 70B (44 GB), Llama 3.1 70B Instruct (44 GB), DeepSeek-R1 Distill Llama 70B (44 GB), Kolibri 1 (46 GB), Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B (53 GB), Nemotron 3 Super 120B-A12B (67 GB), gpt-oss-120b (68 GB), Llama 4 Scout (70 GB) and more.
Questions
What is the best AI model for the M3 Pro (36 GB)?
Qwen3.6-35B-A3B at Q4_K_M: the largest model on our shortlist of current models that runs at 4-bit or better at a usable speed (about 49 tok/s, ModelFit est.).
How much memory can a model use on the M3 Pro (36 GB)?
About 24 GB of the 36 GB.
How fast is the M3 Pro (36 GB) for local LLMs?
Decode speed is limited by memory bandwidth: 150 GB/s. A model that reads 10 GB per token runs at under 15 tokens per second.