Will it run? / Qwen 3-VL 30B (A3B) / Mac mini M4 (16GB)

Can the Mac mini M4 (16GB) run Qwen 3-VL 30B (A3B)?

Won't fit No. Qwen 3-VL 30B (A3B) needs about 21.5 GB of memory, and the Mac mini M4 (16GB) can give a model about 10.7 GB. You'd need a machine with more memory, or a smaller model.

–estimated tokens/sec
21.5 GBmemory needed
10.7 GBavailable to the model
120 GB/smemory bandwidth

Check the Mac mini M4 (16GB) price →

How we got this number

Each generated token reads the active part of the model from memory once: 2 GB. The Mac mini M4 (16GB) moves 120 GB/s, so the ceiling is 60 tokens/sec. Real machines reach a fraction of that ceiling; we use 80%, calibrated against a measured Mac run. Send us your real numbers and we'll replace the estimate.

Faster machines for Qwen 3-VL 30B (A3B)

Mac Studio M5 Max (40-core GPU, 64GB)120+ tok/s$3,799Check price →
Mac Studio M5 Ultra (96GB)120+ tok/s$5,499Check price →
Mac Studio M5 Ultra (256GB)120+ tok/s$9,499Check price →
Mac mini M5 Pro (64GB)68 tok/sCheck price →

Other models on the Mac mini M4 (16GB)

lfm 2.5 8B (A1B)Fast78 tok/s
orca mini 7BFast23 tok/s
Mistral 7BFast22 tok/s
Qwen2 7BFast22 tok/s
starCoder 2 7BFast22 tok/s
OLMo 2 7BFast21 tok/s