Can I run it?
Can I run Qwen3.5 9B on Apple M4?
Tight fit
Tight fit fully in unified memory on your Apple M4 at Q8_0, 8K context, about 6.7–9.2 tok/s. Weights 8.87 GB plus 0.27 GB of KV cache — 9.54 GB of 11.0 GB usable. Up to 32K context still fits.
Best quantQ8_0
Working context8K
Max that fits32K
Speed6.7–9.2 tok/s
Weights8.87 GB
KV cache0.27 GB
Total9.54 GB
Usable11.0 GB
Qwen3.5 9B details · Apple M4 page · How this estimate is made
Run commands
llama.cpp
llama-server -hf unsloth/Qwen3.5-9B-GGUF:Q8_0 -c 8192 -ngl 32
Ollama
ollama run qwen3.5
LM Studio
lms get unsloth/Qwen3.5-9B-GGUF # Then load quant Q8_0
Assumptions
- Estimate, not a benchmark. Decode speed uses a memory-bandwidth model at 55–75% of peak.
- KV cache is FP16. Engine overhead assumes llama.cpp (0.3 GB + 1% of the weights). Ollama is closer to 0.9 GB + 3%, LM Studio closer to 1 GB + 3%.
- Q8_0 size is the real GGUF file size from Hugging Face.
- Unified memory uses 75% for the GPU by default, and always leaves about 5 GB for the OS.
- Speed is quoted at 8K context, not at the maximum context that still fits.
Larger models that also fit
- Can I run Qwen3.8 27B on Apple M4? — Tight fit, UD-Q2_K_XL, 6.4–8.7 tok/s
- Can I run gemma 4 12b it on Apple M4? — Tight fit, Q6_K, 5.1–6.9 tok/s
- Can I run Qwen3.6 35B A3B on Apple M4? — Tight fit, UD-IQ2_XXS, 60–82 tok/s
Updated 2026-10-24. Profile on this page is the device default.