GPUs & Macs › Apple M3 (10-core GPU)

Apple M3 (10-core GPU): local LLM speed

Llama 2 7B (Q4_0) generates 21.3 tokens/s on the Apple M3 (10-core GPU) (Metal), and processes prompts at 187 tokens/s.

Measured results

Model	Generate tok/s	Prompt tok/s	Quant	Backend	Test	Source
Llama 2 7B	21.3	187	Q4_0	Metal FA off	tg128	llama.cpp #4167 details
Llama 2 7B	12.3	188	Q8_0	Metal FA off	tg128	llama.cpp #4167 details
Llama 3.2 1B Instruct	65.9	924	Q4_K_M	llamafile	LocalScore avg · n=2	LocalScore LocalScore details
Llama 3.1 8B Instruct	11.9	124	Q4_K_M	llamafile	LocalScore avg · n=2	LocalScore LocalScore details
Qwen2.5 14B Instruct	6.1	66	Q4_K_M	llamafile	LocalScore avg	LocalScore details

Vendor	Apple
Memory	Unified (depends on configuration)
Memory bandwidth	100 GB/s
GPU cores	10
Spec source	Wikipedia (Apple M3)
Spec note	theoretical 102.4

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What fits on the Apple M3 (10-core GPU)

Estimates for this chip are scaled from a measured run: Llama 2 7B Q8_0 at 12.3 tok/s (Metal, source). Fit assumes the whole model in GPU memory with ~8K context.

With 16 GB unified memory

Model	Best quant that fits	File	Expected tok/s
Qwen3.8-27B	UD-IQ2_XXS	7.3 GB	12.1 estimate
gemma-4-12B-it	Q6_K	9.8 GB	9.0 estimate
Qwen3.5-9B	Q8_0	9.5 GB	9.2 estimate
Qwen3.5-4B	Q8_0	4.5 GB	19.6 estimate
Qwen3.6-35B-A3B	UD-IQ1_M	10.0 GB	51.0 estimate
gemma-4-26B-A4B-it	UD-IQ2_M	10.0 GB	28.5 estimate
MiMo-V2.6-Distill-Qwen-9B	Q8_0	9.5 GB	9.2 estimate
gemma-4-E4B-it	Q8_0	8.2 GB	10.7 estimate

With 36 GB unified memory

Model	Best quant that fits	File	Expected tok/s
Qwen3.8-27B	UD-Q6_K	22.0 GB	4.0 estimate
gemma-4-12B-it	Q8_0	12.7 GB	6.9 estimate
Qwen3.5-9B	Q8_0	9.5 GB	9.2 estimate
Qwen3.5-4B	Q8_0	4.5 GB	19.6 estimate
Qwen3.6-35B-A3B	UD-Q5_K_S	24.9 GB	20.6 estimate
gemma-4-26B-A4B-it	UD-Q6_K	23.2 GB	12.3 estimate
MiMo-V2.6-Distill-Qwen-9B	Q8_0	9.5 GB	9.2 estimate
gemma-4-E4B-it	Q8_0	8.2 GB	10.7 estimate

With 64 GB unified memory

Model	Best quant that fits	File	Expected tok/s
Qwen3.8-27B	Q8_0	29.0 GB	3.0 estimate
gemma-4-12B-it	Q8_0	12.7 GB	6.9 estimate
Qwen3.5-9B	Q8_0	9.5 GB	9.2 estimate
Qwen3.5-4B	Q8_0	4.5 GB	19.6 estimate
Qwen3.6-35B-A3B	Q8_0	36.9 GB	13.9 estimate
gemma-4-26B-A4B-it	Q8_0	26.9 GB	10.6 estimate
MiMo-V2.6-Distill-Qwen-9B	Q8_0	9.5 GB	9.2 estimate
gemma-4-E4B-it	Q8_0	8.2 GB	10.7 estimate

With 128 GB unified memory

Model	Best quant that fits	File	Expected tok/s
Qwen3.8-27B	Q8_0	29.0 GB	3.0 estimate
gemma-4-12B-it	Q8_0	12.7 GB	6.9 estimate
Qwen3.5-9B	Q8_0	9.5 GB	9.2 estimate
Qwen3.5-4B	Q8_0	4.5 GB	19.6 estimate
Qwen3.6-35B-A3B	Q8_0	36.9 GB	13.9 estimate
Qwen3.8-Flash-Next	UD-IQ3_XXS	82.0 GB	1.1 estimate
gemma-4-26B-A4B-it	Q8_0	26.9 GB	10.6 estimate
MiMo-V2.6-Distill-Qwen-9B	Q8_0	9.5 GB	9.2 estimate

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