Nemotron Cascade 2 30B-A3B on Apple M4 Max (128 GB)

Can the Apple M4 Max (128 GB) run Nemotron Cascade 2 30B-A3B?

Yes, it runs great

Runs great. At Q8_0 it needs about 41.8 GB of 96.0 GB usable, with an estimated speed of 63.6 tok/s.

Best quant: Q8_0
Generation speed: 63.6 tok/s
Prompt processing: 3,259 tok/s
First token (1K prompt): 0.3 s
Largest safe context: 256K

Best app to run it on the Apple M4 Max (128 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 3.5B active parameters on Apple silicon.
Point-and-click: search, download and chat in one window.

Open Nemotron Cascade 2 30B-A3B in LM Studio

MLX LM Runs the MLX build, typically 35–90% faster than GGUF for a model with 3.5B active parameters on Apple silicon.
Unsloth Desktop Runs the MLX build, typically 35–90% faster than GGUF for a model with 3.5B 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 Nemotron Cascade 2 30B-A3B

Recommended for the Apple M4 Max (128 GB): Q8_0. 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 Q8_0 file (opens in a new tab)

huggingface.co/bartowski/nvidia_Nemotron-Cascade-2-30B-A3B-GGUF (opens in a new tab)

ollama run hf.co/bartowski/nvidia_Nemotron-Cascade-2-30B-A3B-GGUF:Q8_0

Original weights · Hugging Face

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

huggingface.co/nvidia/Nemotron-Cascade-2-30B-A3B (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 80Great quality (A) · 80 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 86/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.: How capable the model itself is at Q8_0, 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 M4 Max (128 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.	36.0 / 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.	10.0 / 15
Match score	86.0 / 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 M4 Max (128 GB)

Quant	Memory needed	Available	Speed	Runs	Quality	Download
`Q2_K`	21.0 GB	96.0 GB	147 tok/s	Runs great	56Good quality (B) · 56 of 100: how capable the model is at Q2_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 70/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF (opens in a new tab)
`Q3_K_M`	23.8 GB	96.0 GB	126 tok/s	Runs great	67Good quality (B) · 67 of 100: how capable the model is at Q3_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 75/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF (opens in a new tab)
`Q4_K_M`	27.6 GB	96.0 GB	106 tok/s	Runs great	76Great quality (A) · 76 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 80/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF (opens in a new tab)
`Q5_K_M`	30.8 GB	96.0 GB	92.2 tok/s	Runs great	77Great quality (A) · 77 of 100: how capable the model is at Q5_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 82/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF (opens in a new tab)
`Q6_K`	34.2 GB	96.0 GB	81.0 tok/s	Runs great	79Great quality (A) · 79 of 100: how capable the model is at Q6_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 83/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF (opens in a new tab)
`Q8_0`	41.8 GB	96.0 GB	63.6 tok/s	Runs great	80Great quality (A) · 80 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 86/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF (opens in a new tab)
`F16`	71.5 GB	96.0 GB	33.1 tok/s	Runs great	80Great quality (A) · 80 of 100: how capable the model is at F16, whatever it runs on. Match score 89/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF · folder (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

80Great quality (A) · 80 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 91/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. Apple M1 Max (64 GB) Q8_0 · 49.8 tok/s · Runs great
80Great quality (A) · 80 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 91/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. Apple M4 Max (64 GB) Q8_0 · 63.6 tok/s · Runs great
80Great quality (A) · 80 of 100: how capable the model is at F16, whatever it runs on. Match score 91/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell F16 · 89.6 tok/s · Runs great
79Great quality (A) · 79 of 100: how capable the model is at Q6_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 90/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. Apple M4 Pro (48 GB) Q6_K · 47.4 tok/s · Runs great
77Great quality (A) · 77 of 100: how capable the model is at Q5_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 89/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Q5_K_M · 184 tok/s · Runs great
76Great quality (A) · 76 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 88/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX Q4_K_M · 147 tok/s · Runs well (tight fit)

Quick answers

How much memory does Nemotron Cascade 2 30B-A3B need on the M4 Max 128GB?

At Q8_0 it needs about 41.8 GB. The M4 Max 128GB has 96.0 GB usable.

How fast is Nemotron Cascade 2 30B-A3B on the M4 Max 128GB?

About 63.6 tok/s at Q8_0, an estimate from the hardware’s memory bandwidth and the size of the model.

Which quantization of Nemotron Cascade 2 30B-A3B should I use on the M4 Max 128GB?

Q8_0. 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.