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Can the Apple M3 Ultra (256 GB) run NorthCUA Mini?

59Good quality (B) · 59 of 100: how capable the model is at F16, whatever it runs on. Match score 76/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.

Yes, it runs great

Runs great. At F16 it needs about 86.3 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
256K

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

On macOS

LM Studio

Desktop app · runs on llama.cpp, MLX

  • Point-and-click: search, download and chat in one window.

Open NorthCUA Mini in LM Studio

  • llama.cpp Usually the first to support new model architectures.
  • Ollama Runs the Hugging Face GGUF with ollama run hf.co/…

Want an agent? NorthCUA Mini supports tool use, so you can pair a llama.cpp or MLX LM server with one of these. Apps that run on this computer come first.

Coding agents

Personal assistants

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 NorthCUA Mini

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 files (opens in a new tab)

huggingface.co/bartowski/beipo-ai_NorthCUA-Mini-GGUF (opens in a new tab)

ollama run hf.co/bartowski/beipo-ai_NorthCUA-Mini-GGUF

Original weights · Hugging Face

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

huggingface.co/beipo-ai/NorthCUA-Mini (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 59Good quality (B) · 59 of 100: how capable the model is at F16, whatever it runs on. Match score 76/100 (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.26.6 / 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.10.4 / 15
Match score76.9 / 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 30.2 GB 192 GB 191 tok/s Runs great 41Fair quality (C) · 41 of 100: how capable the model is at Q2_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 62/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. GGUF (opens in a new tab)
Q3_K_M 33.3 GB 192 GB 169 tok/s Runs great 49Fair quality (C) · 49 of 100: how capable the model is at Q3_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 66/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. GGUF (opens in a new tab)
Q4_K_M 37.5 GB 192 GB 146 tok/s Runs great 56Good quality (B) · 56 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 69/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. GGUF (opens in a new tab)
Q5_K_M 41.1 GB 192 GB 130 tok/s Runs great 57Good quality (B) · 57 of 100: how capable the model is at Q5_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 70/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. GGUF (opens in a new tab)
Q6_K 44.9 GB 192 GB 116 tok/s Runs great 58Good quality (B) · 58 of 100: how capable the model is at Q6_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 71/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. GGUF (opens in a new tab)
Q8_0 53.3 GB 192 GB 94.2 tok/s Runs great 59Good quality (B) · 59 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 72/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. GGUF (opens in a new tab)
F16 86.3 GB 192 GB 52.2 tok/s Runs great 59Good quality (B) · 59 of 100: how capable the model is at F16, whatever it runs on. Match score 76/100 (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

Quick answers

How much memory does NorthCUA Mini need on the M3 Ultra 256GB?

At F16 it needs about 86.3 GB. The M3 Ultra 256GB has 192 GB usable.

How fast is NorthCUA Mini 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 NorthCUA Mini 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.

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