Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Thinking on Apple M5 Ultra (256 GB)

Can the Apple M5 Ultra (256 GB) run Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Thinking?

Yes, it runs great

Runs great. At Q8_0 it needs about 102 GB of 192 GB usable, with an estimated speed of 118 tok/s.

Best quant: Q8_0
Generation speed: 118 tok/s
Prompt processing: 7,791 tok/s
First token (1K prompt): 0.3 s
Largest safe context: 256K

Best app to run it on the Apple M5 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 Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Thinking 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.

Want an agent? Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Thinking 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 Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Thinking

Recommended for the Apple M5 Ultra (256 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/Qwen/Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking-GGUF (opens in a new tab)

ollama run hf.co/Qwen/Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking-GGUF:Q8_0

Original weights · Hugging Face

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

huggingface.co/Qwen/Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking (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 86Excellent quality (A+) · 86 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.: 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 M5 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.	38.7 / 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.	12.3 / 15
Match score	91.0 / 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 M5 Ultra (256 GB)

Quant	Memory needed	Available	Speed	Runs	Quality	Download
`Q2_K`	48.7 GB	192 GB	219 tok/s	Runs great	60Good quality (B) · 60 of 100: how capable the model is at Q2_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 72/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF files (opens in a new tab)
`Q3_K_M`	56.0 GB	192 GB	197 tok/s	Runs great	72Great quality (A) · 72 of 100: how capable the model is at Q3_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 79/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF files (opens in a new tab)
`Q4_K_M`	65.8 GB	192 GB	175 tok/s	Runs great	81Great quality (A) · 81 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 84/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF (opens in a new tab)
`Q5_K_M`	73.9 GB	192 GB	157 tok/s	Runs great	83Great quality (A) · 83 of 100: how capable the model is at Q5_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 86/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF (opens in a new tab)
`Q6_K`	82.8 GB	192 GB	143 tok/s	Runs great	85Excellent quality (A+) · 85 of 100: how capable the model is at Q6_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 88/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF (opens in a new tab)
`Q8_0`	102 GB	192 GB	118 tok/s	Runs great	86Excellent quality (A+) · 86 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.	GGUF (opens in a new tab)
`F16`	179 GB	192 GB	69.2 tok/s	Runs welltight fit	86Excellent quality (A+) · 86 of 100: how capable the model is at F16, whatever it runs on. Match score 92/100 (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

86Excellent quality (A+) · 86 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 93/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. Apple M2 Ultra (192 GB) Q8_0 · 92.8 tok/s · Runs great
86Excellent quality (A+) · 86 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 93/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. NVIDIA GB10 (128 GB) Q8_0 · 46.8 tok/s · Runs great
85Excellent quality (A+) · 85 of 100: how capable the model is at Q6_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 93/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 (128 GB) Q6_K · 51.1 tok/s · Runs great
85Excellent quality (A+) · 85 of 100: how capable the model is at Q6_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 93/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. Apple M4 Max (128 GB) Q6_K · 90.1 tok/s · Runs great
85Excellent quality (A+) · 85 of 100: how capable the model is at Q6_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 93/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Q6_K · 179 tok/s · Runs great
85Excellent quality (A+) · 85 of 100: how capable the model is at Q6_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 93/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. NVIDIA RTX Spark N1X (6144-core GPU) (128 GB) Q6_K · 65.1 tok/s · Runs great

Quick answers

How much memory does Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Thinking need on the M5 Ultra 256GB?

At Q8_0 it needs about 102 GB. The M5 Ultra 256GB has 192 GB usable.

How fast is Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Thinking on the M5 Ultra 256GB?

About 118 tok/s at Q8_0, an estimate from the hardware’s memory bandwidth and the size of the model.

Which quantization of Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Thinking should I use on the M5 Ultra 256GB?

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.