GPU GUIDE · APPLE
Best AI models for the
Apple M3 Pro (36GB)
The Apple M3 Pro (36GB) has 36.0GB of unified memory. Below are the top 30 open-source AI models that fit, ranked by composite benchmark score. Each row shows the best quantization that fits your hardware.
VRAM
36.0GB
Brand
apple
Models that fit
30
Generation
M3
Top 30 models for the Apple M3 Pro (36GB)
01
77.5DeepSeek V4 Flash
37.0BBest fit: Q6_K · 31.5GBCan I run it? →
02
76.4Qwen 3.6 27B
27.0BBest fit: Q8_0 · 29.7GBCan I run it? →
03
72.5Qwen 3.6 35B A3B
35.0BBest fit: Q6_K · 29.8GBCan I run it? →
04
70.1Qwen3.5-27B
27.8BBest fit: Q8_0 · 30.5GBCan I run it? →
05
65.3Gemma 4 31B (free)
31.0BBest fit: Q8_0 · 33.9GBCan I run it? →
06
61.9Qwen 3.5 35B A3B
35.0BBest fit: Q6_K · 29.8GBCan I run it? →
07
54.0Qwen 3.5 9B
9.0BBest fit: fp16 · 19.0GBCan I run it? →
08
53.8gemma 4 31B
32.7BBest fit: Q8_0 · 35.7GBCan I run it? →
09
52.0Gemma 4 26B A4B (free)
26.5BBest fit: Q8_0 · 29.2GBCan I run it? →
10
45.1Qwen 3.5 4B
4.0BBest fit: fp16 · 9.0GBCan I run it? →
11
40.8GPT-OSS 20B
20.0BBest fit: Q8_0 · 22.3GBCan I run it? →
12
40.5Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (free)
31.6BBest fit: Q8_0 · 34.6GBCan I run it? →
13
37.4Qwen3 30B A3B Thinking 2507
30.5BBest fit: Q8_0 · 33.4GBCan I run it? →
14
36.7Devstral 2
24.0BBest fit: Q8_0 · 26.5GBCan I run it? →
15
35.7Nemotron 3 Nano Omni 30B A3B Reasoning BF16
30.0BBest fit: Q8_0 · 32.9GBCan I run it? →
16
33.3Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct
30.5BBest fit: Q8_0 · 33.4GBCan I run it? →
17
32.9QwQ 32B
32.0BBest fit: Q8_0 · 35.0GBCan I run it? →
18
32.8Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Thinking
31.1BBest fit: Q8_0 · 34.0GBCan I run it? →
19
32.4Devstral Small 2 24B Instruct 2512
24.0BBest fit: Q8_0 · 26.5GBCan I run it? →
20
31.7Devstral Small 2
7.0BBest fit: fp16 · 15.0GBCan I run it? →
21
31.3gemma 4 E4B it
8.0BBest fit: f32 · 33.0GBCan I run it? →
22
31.1Llama 3.3 Nemotron Super 49B V1.5
49.9BBest fit: Q5_K_S · 35.4GBCan I run it? →
23
30.3Qwen3 4B Thinking 2507
4.0BBest fit: fp16 · 9.0GBCan I run it? →
24
28.7Qwen3 VL 32B Instruct
33.4BBest fit: Q6_K · 28.5GBCan I run it? →
25
28.6DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 32B
32.8BBest fit: Q8_0 · 35.9GBCan I run it? →
26
27.8Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking
8.8BBest fit: fp16 · 18.6GBCan I run it? →
27
27.5Qwen3 32B
32.8BBest fit: Q8_0 · 35.9GBCan I run it? →
28
27.4DeepSeek R1 0528 Qwen3 8B
8.2BBest fit: Q8_0 · 9.7GBCan I run it? →
29
27.2Qwen 3.5 2B
2.0BBest fit: fp16 · 5.0GBCan I run it? →
30
27.0Qwen3 14B
14.8BBest fit: fp16 · 30.6GBCan I run it? →
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FAQ — running AI on the Apple M3 Pro (36GB)
How many AI models can the Apple M3 Pro (36GB) run?
With 36.0GB of unified memory, the Apple M3 Pro (36GB) can run 30+ open-source models from our database, including DeepSeek V4 Flash, Qwen 3.6 27B, Qwen 3.6 35B A3B.
What's the largest LLM I can run on a Apple M3 Pro (36GB)?
The biggest model that fits is approximately 49.9B. Larger models would need to be quantized further or won't fit at all.
Is 36.0GB of unified memory enough for local AI?
Yes — 36.0GB comfortably runs most popular open-source models including 30B-class LLMs at Q4_K_M.