PaddleOCR-VL 1.6 0.9B on Apple M3 Max (48 GB)

Can the Apple M3 Max (48 GB) run PaddleOCR-VL 1.6 0.9B?

Yes, it runs great

Runs great. At F16 it needs about 5.6 GB of 36.0 GB usable, with an estimated speed of 103 tok/s.

Best quant: F16
Generation speed: 103 tok/s
Prompt processing: 10,592 tok/s
First token (1K prompt): 0.3 s
Largest safe context: 128K

Best app to run it on the Apple M3 Max (48 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 1B active parameters on Apple silicon.
Point-and-click: search, download and chat in one window.

Open PaddleOCR-VL 1.6 0.9B in LM Studio

MLX LM Runs the MLX build, typically 35–90% faster than GGUF for a model with 1B active parameters on Apple silicon.
Unsloth Desktop Runs the MLX build, typically 35–90% faster than GGUF for a model with 1B 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 PaddleOCR-VL 1.6 0.9B

Quantized files · GGUF

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

huggingface.co/PaddlePaddle/PaddleOCR-VL-1.6-GGUF (opens in a new tab)

ollama run hf.co/PaddlePaddle/PaddleOCR-VL-1.6-GGUF

Original weights · Hugging Face

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

huggingface.co/PaddlePaddle/PaddleOCR-VL-1.6 (opens in a new tab)

No sign-in needed.

Official repo · GitHub

Reference code, inference scripts and docs from Baidu. The weights themselves download from Hugging Face.

github.com/PaddlePaddle/PaddleOCR (opens in a new tab)

git clone https://github.com/PaddlePaddle/PaddleOCR

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

How it’s rated

Quality 42Fair quality (C) · 42 of 100: how capable the model is at F16, whatever it runs on. Match score 62/100 (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 Max (48 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.	18.9 / 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.	3.6 / 15
Match score	62.5 / 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 Max (48 GB)

Quant	Memory needed	Available	Speed	Runs	Quality	Download
`Q2_K`	4.0 GB	36.0 GB	723 tok/s	Runs great	29Basic quality (D) · 29 of 100: how capable the model is at Q2_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 55/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF files (opens in a new tab)
`Q3_K_M`	4.1 GB	36.0 GB	569 tok/s	Runs great	35Basic quality (D) · 35 of 100: how capable the model is at Q3_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 58/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF files (opens in a new tab)
`Q4_K_M`	4.2 GB	36.0 GB	440 tok/s	Runs great	39Basic quality (D) · 39 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 60/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF files (opens in a new tab)
`Q5_K_M`	4.3 GB	36.0 GB	364 tok/s	Runs great	40Fair quality (C) · 40 of 100: how capable the model is at Q5_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 61/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF files (opens in a new tab)
`Q6_K`	4.4 GB	36.0 GB	306 tok/s	Runs great	41Fair quality (C) · 41 of 100: how capable the model is at Q6_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)
`Q8_0`	4.6 GB	36.0 GB	224 tok/s	Runs great	42Fair quality (C) · 42 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 61/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF files (opens in a new tab)
`F16`	5.6 GB	36.0 GB	103 tok/s	Runs great	42Fair quality (C) · 42 of 100: how capable the model is at F16, whatever it runs on. Match score 62/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	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

42Fair quality (C) · 42 of 100: how capable the model is at F16, whatever it runs on. Match score 67/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 F16 · 81.6 tok/s · Runs great
42Fair quality (C) · 42 of 100: how capable the model is at F16, whatever it runs on. Match score 65/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. Intel Arc B580 F16 · 105 tok/s · Runs great
42Fair quality (C) · 42 of 100: how capable the model is at F16, whatever it runs on. Match score 65/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12GB F16 · 108 tok/s · Runs great
42Fair quality (C) · 42 of 100: how capable the model is at F16, whatever it runs on. Match score 65/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER F16 · 151 tok/s · Runs great
42Fair quality (C) · 42 of 100: how capable the model is at F16, whatever it runs on. Match score 64/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. Apple M4 Pro (24 GB) F16 · 70.5 tok/s · Runs great
42Fair quality (C) · 42 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 64/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. Apple M4 (16 GB) Q8_0 · 67.3 tok/s · Runs great

Quick answers

How much memory does PaddleOCR-VL 1.6 0.9B need on the M3 Max 48GB?

At F16 it needs about 5.6 GB. The M3 Max 48GB has 36.0 GB usable.

How fast is PaddleOCR-VL 1.6 0.9B on the M3 Max 48GB?

About 103 tok/s at F16, an estimate from the hardware’s memory bandwidth and the size of the model.

Which quantization of PaddleOCR-VL 1.6 0.9B should I use on the M3 Max 48GB?

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.