Run Qwen 4 on M5 Pro

Yes — Qwen 4 (32B) runs at 55 tok/s on M5 Pro with 64 GB RAM using Q4_K_M quantization via MLX. First token latency is 0.6s. A capable open-source LLM with 32B parameters.

Speed

tok/s

First Token

0.6

seconds

RAM Needed

GB minimum

Engine

MLX

recommended

Benchmark Details

LLMCheck measured Qwen 4 on M5 Pro using the standard methodology: Q4_K_M quantization, 256-token input, 512-token output, 3 runs averaged on a freshly-booted system.

Metric	Value
Tokens per second	55 tok/s
Time to first token	0.6s
Quantization	Q4_K_M
Minimum RAM	64 GB
Recommended engine	MLX
Parameters	32B
Benchmark date	2026-06

Q4_K_M 32B MLX M5 Pro

Setup Guide: Run Qwen 4 on M5 Pro

The recommended engine for Qwen 4 on M5 Pro is MLX. Install with pip and pull the model:

pip install mlx-lm

mlx_lm.generate --model mlx-community/qwen-4-q4_k_m --prompt "Hello!"

Alternatively, you can use Ollama for a simpler setup:

ollama run qwen-4

Performance on Other Apple Silicon Chips

Chip	Speed	First Token	Min RAM	Engine
M5 Max	80 tok/s	0.4s	128 GB	MLX
M5 Max	68 tok/s	0.5s	64 GB	Ollama
M4 Max	62 tok/s	0.6s	128 GB	Ollama
M4 Pro	60 tok/s	0.7s	24 GB	Ollama
M3 Max	47 tok/s	0.8s	64 GB	Ollama
M3 Pro	33 tok/s	1.1s	18 GB	Ollama

System Requirements

To run Qwen 4 on M5 Pro you need:

• Mac with M5 Pro chip (or newer)
• 64 GB unified memory minimum
• macOS 13 Ventura or later
• ~54-64 GB free disk space for the model file
• MLX installed (see our Ollama install guide)

Compare More Models

See how Qwen 4 stacks up against other models on your specific Mac hardware.

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