Kimi-VL A3B Thinking 2506 on Apple M3 Ultra (256 GB)

Can the Apple M3 Ultra (256 GB) run Kimi-VL A3B Thinking 2506?

Yes, it runs great

Runs great. At F16 it needs about 49.0 GB of 192 GB usable, with an estimated speed of 52.2 tok/s.

Best quant: F16
Generation speed: 52.2 tok/s
Prompt processing: 5,869 tok/s
First token (1K prompt): 0.3 s
Largest safe context: 128K

Best app to run it on the Apple M3 Ultra (256 GB)

On macOS

LM Studio

Desktop app · runs on llama.cpp, MLX · use the MLX build

Runs the MLX build, typically 35–90% faster than GGUF for a model with 3B active parameters on Apple silicon.
Point-and-click: search, download and chat in one window.

Open Kimi-VL A3B Thinking 2506 in LM Studio

MLX LM Runs the MLX build, typically 35–90% faster than GGUF for a model with 3B active parameters on Apple silicon.
Unsloth Desktop Runs the MLX build, typically 35–90% faster than GGUF for a model with 3B active parameters on Apple silicon.

How we choose: the files published for this model, your operating system and GPU, whether it fits fully in memory, and published speed tests (MLX vs llama.cpp on Apple silicon, vLLM vs llama.cpp vs Ollama on NVIDIA). Details.

Download Kimi-VL A3B Thinking 2506

Recommended for the Apple M3 Ultra (256 GB): F16. Every other quantization has its own download link in the table below.

Quantized files · GGUF

Works in LM Studio, llama.cpp, Jan and Ollama. No sign-in needed.

Download the F16 file (opens in a new tab)

huggingface.co/ggml-org/Kimi-VL-A3B-Thinking-2506-GGUF (opens in a new tab)

ollama run hf.co/ggml-org/Kimi-VL-A3B-Thinking-2506-GGUF:BF16

Original weights · Hugging Face

Full-precision files from Moonshot AI, for fine-tuning, vLLM, Transformers.

huggingface.co/moonshotai/Kimi-VL-A3B-Thinking-2506 (opens in a new tab)

No sign-in needed.

Links checked 3 days ago against Hugging Face, Ollama and GitHub.

How it’s rated

Quality 60Good quality (B) · 60 of 100: how capable the model is at F16, whatever it runs on. Match score 72/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.: How capable the model itself is at F16, from its editorial quality tier scaled by the quantization or precision. It’s the same on any hardware that runs this variant. Scale: A+ 85+ · A 70+ · B 55+ · C 40+ · D under 40.
Runs Runs great: How well it runs on the Apple M3 Ultra (256 GB): speed, capped by how well it fits in memory. Runs great: 30+ tokens/s (or near the image, video or decision speed target) · Runs well: 10+ tokens/s · Slow: 3+ tokens/s · Very slow: under 3 · Won’t run: doesn’t fit even with offload. A tight fit or RAM offload caps it at Runs well; heavy offload caps it at Slow.

Match score

To order lists, each result also gets a match score out of 100 from four parts. It favors the most capable model that still runs well.

Model qualityEditorial quality tier of the model, scaled by the quantization or precision used.	27.0 / 45
Memory fitFull marks when the model fits in the share of unified memory the GPU can use; fewer when it goes past that limit.	25.0 / 25
SpeedGeneration speed against a 40 tokens/s target for LLMs, or render time against a target for image and video.	15.0 / 15
Memory useRewards using the memory you have, so a bigger, better variant beats a tiny one that leaves most memory idle.	5.9 / 15
Match score	72.9 / 100

The match score orders results; it is not shown as a grade. Quality and Runs are the two ratings in the tables.

Every quantization on the Apple M3 Ultra (256 GB)

Quant	Memory needed	Available	Speed	Runs	Quality	Download
`Q2_K`	22.8 GB	192 GB	191 tok/s	Runs great	42Fair quality (C) · 42 of 100: how capable the model is at Q2_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 61/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF files (opens in a new tab)
`Q3_K_M`	24.3 GB	192 GB	169 tok/s	Runs great	50Fair quality (C) · 50 of 100: how capable the model is at Q3_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 65/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF files (opens in a new tab)
`Q4_K_M`	26.2 GB	192 GB	146 tok/s	Runs great	57Good quality (B) · 57 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 68/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF (opens in a new tab)
`Q5_K_M`	27.9 GB	192 GB	130 tok/s	Runs great	58Good quality (B) · 58 of 100: how capable the model is at Q5_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 69/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF files (opens in a new tab)
`Q6_K`	29.7 GB	192 GB	116 tok/s	Runs great	59Good quality (B) · 59 of 100: how capable the model is at Q6_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 70/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF files (opens in a new tab)
`Q8_0`	33.6 GB	192 GB	94.2 tok/s	Runs great	60Good quality (B) · 60 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 71/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF (opens in a new tab)
`F16`	49.0 GB	192 GB	52.2 tok/s	Runs great	60Good quality (B) · 60 of 100: how capable the model is at F16, whatever it runs on. Match score 72/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF (opens in a new tab) Original weights (opens in a new tab)

Memory figures assume 8K of context. Longer conversations or documents grow the KV cache.

Other hardware that runs it

60Good quality (B) · 60 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 82/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX Q8_0 · 104 tok/s · Runs great
60Good quality (B) · 60 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 82/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Q8_0 · 112 tok/s · Runs great
60Good quality (B) · 60 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 82/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Q8_0 · 117 tok/s · Runs great
60Good quality (B) · 60 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 81/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Q8_0 · 154 tok/s · Runs great
58Good quality (B) · 58 of 100: how capable the model is at Q5_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 81/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT Q5_K_M · 113 tok/s · Runs great
58Good quality (B) · 58 of 100: how capable the model is at Q5_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 81/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB Q5_K_M · 72.6 tok/s · Runs great

Quick answers

How much memory does Kimi-VL A3B Thinking 2506 need on the M3 Ultra 256GB?

At F16 it needs about 49.0 GB. The M3 Ultra 256GB has 192 GB usable.

How fast is Kimi-VL A3B Thinking 2506 on the M3 Ultra 256GB?

About 52.2 tok/s at F16, an estimate from the hardware’s memory bandwidth and the size of the model.

Which quantization of Kimi-VL A3B Thinking 2506 should I use on the M3 Ultra 256GB?

F16. Of the versions that fit, it is the one that runs best; when two run equally well, the check prefers the higher-rated one.

Estimates come from published hardware specs and our open formulas, not from running the model on your machine. Real speed varies with runtime, drivers and settings. Numbers marked “Measured” come from a linked benchmark.