Can I run it?
Can I run Qwen3.8 9B Distill on Apple M1 Max?
Runs
Runs fully in unified memory on your Apple M1 Max at BF16, 8K context, about 12–16 tok/s. Weights 17.1 GB plus 0.27 GB of KV cache — 17.9 GB of 24.0 GB usable. Up to 128K context still fits.
Best quantBF16
Working context8K
Max that fits128K
Speed12–16 tok/sEstimate from memory bandwidth, not a benchmark. Method.
Weights17.1 GB
KV cache0.27 GB
Total17.9 GB
Usable24.0 GB
Qwen3.8 9B Distill details · Apple M1 Max page · How this estimate is made
Run commands
llama.cpp
llama-server -hf empero-ai/Qwen3.8-9B-Distill-GGUF:BF16 -c 8192 -ngl 32
Ollama
ollama run qwen3.8
LM Studio
lms get empero-ai/Qwen3.8-9B-Distill-GGUF # Then load quant BF16
Assumptions
- Estimate from memory bandwidth, not a benchmark. Decode speed uses 55–75% of peak bandwidth.
- 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%.
- BF16 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 M1 Max? — Tight fit, UD-Q6_K_L, 9.0–12 tok/s (estimate)
- Can I run gemma 4 12b it on Apple M1 Max? — Tight fit, BF16, 8.6–12 tok/s (estimate)
- Can I run Qwen3.6 35B A3B on Apple M1 Max? — Tight fit, UD-Q4_K_XL, 24–32 tok/s (estimate)
Updated 2026-10-24. Profile on this page is the device default.