Run Qwen3-235B-A22B on M5 Max

Yes — Qwen3-235B-A22B (235B) runs at 15 tok/s on M5 Max with 128 GB RAM using Q4_K_M quantization via Ollama. First token latency is 2.2s. Alibaba's massive 235B MoE (22B active) — near-cloud quality locally.

Speed
15
tok/s
First Token
2.2
seconds
RAM Needed
128
GB minimum
Engine
Ollama
recommended

Benchmark Details

LLMCheck measured Qwen3-235B-A22B on M5 Max using the standard methodology: Q4_K_M quantization, 256-token input, 512-token output, 3 runs averaged on a freshly-booted system.

MetricValue
Tokens per second15 tok/s
Time to first token2.2s
QuantizationQ4_K_M
Minimum RAM128 GB
Recommended engineOllama
Parameters235B
Benchmark date2026-04

Q4_K_M 235B Ollama M5 Max

Setup Guide: Run Qwen3-235B-A22B on M5 Max

The recommended engine for Qwen3-235B-A22B on M5 Max is Ollama. Install Ollama, then pull the model:

ollama run qwen3:235b-a22b

Ollama handles quantization automatically — it will download the Q4_K_M variant (~128 GB) and start an interactive chat session.

Performance on Other Apple Silicon Chips

ChipSpeedFirst TokenMin RAMEngine
M4 Ultra 22 tok/s 1.5s 192 GB MLX

System Requirements

To run Qwen3-235B-A22B on M5 Max you need:

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