Qwen3.5 122B-A10B on Apple M5 Ultra (96 GB)

Can the Apple M5 Ultra (96 GB) run Qwen3.5 122B-A10B?

Yes, it runs well (tight fit)

Runs well (tight fit). At Q3_K_M it needs about 67.9 GB of 72.0 GB usable, with an estimated speed of 107 tok/s.

Best quant: Q3_K_M
Generation speed: 107 tok/s
Prompt processing: 2,337 tok/s
First token (1K prompt): 0.4 s
Largest safe context: 172K

Best app to run it on the Apple M5 Ultra (96 GB)

On macOS

LM Studio

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

Runs the MLX build, typically 20–35% faster than GGUF for a model with 10B active parameters on Apple silicon.
Point-and-click: search, download and chat in one window.

Open Qwen3.5 122B-A10B in LM Studio

Ollama One command with Ollama’s own build of this model.
MLX LM Runs the MLX build, typically 20–35% faster than GGUF for a model with 10B active parameters on Apple silicon.

Want an agent? Qwen3.5 122B-A10B 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 Qwen3.5 122B-A10B

Recommended for the Apple M5 Ultra (96 GB): Q3_K_M. Every other quantization has its own download link in the table below.

Quickest · Ollama

One command downloads a ready-to-run version and starts a chat.

Get Ollama at ollama.com/download (opens in a new tab) · model page (opens in a new tab)

ollama run qwen3.5:122b

Quantized files · GGUF

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

Download the Q3_K_M files (opens in a new tab)

huggingface.co/unsloth/Qwen3.5-122B-A10B-GGUF (opens in a new tab)

ollama run hf.co/unsloth/Qwen3.5-122B-A10B-GGUF

Original weights · Hugging Face

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

huggingface.co/Qwen/Qwen3.5-122B-A10B (opens in a new tab)

No sign-in needed.

Official repo · GitHub

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

github.com/QwenLM/Qwen3.8 (opens in a new tab)

Qwen’s current repo: Qwen3.5 and Qwen3.6 redirect here.

git clone https://github.com/QwenLM/Qwen3.8

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

How it’s rated

Quality 77Great quality (A) · 77 of 100: how capable the model is at Q3_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 88/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.: How capable the model itself is at Q3_K_M, 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 welltight fit: How well it runs on the Apple M5 Ultra (96 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.	34.8 / 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.	24.0 / 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.	15.0 / 15
Match score	88.8 / 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 (96 GB)

Quant	Memory needed	Available	Speed	Runs	Quality	Download
`Q2_K`	56.6 GB	72.0 GB	126 tok/s	Runs great	64Good quality (B) · 64 of 100: how capable the model is at Q2_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 83/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF (UD-Q2_K_XL) (opens in a new tab)
`Q3_K_M`	67.9 GB	72.0 GB	107 tok/s	Runs welltight fit	77Great quality (A) · 77 of 100: how capable the model is at Q3_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 88/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF · folder (opens in a new tab)
`Q4_K_M`	82.9 GB	72.0 GB	75.6 tok/s	Slowfar over GPU memory limit	87Excellent quality (A+) · 87 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 73/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF · folder (opens in a new tab)
`Q5_K_M`	95.4 GB	72.0 GB	—	Won't run	89Excellent quality (A+) · 89 of 100: how capable the model is at Q5_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 12/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF · folder (opens in a new tab)
`Q6_K`	109 GB	72.0 GB	—	Won't run	91Excellent quality (A+) · 91 of 100: how capable the model is at Q6_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 12/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF · folder (opens in a new tab)
`Q8_0`	139 GB	72.0 GB	—	Won't run	92Excellent quality (A+) · 92 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 12/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF · folder (opens in a new tab)
`F16`	257 GB	72.0 GB	—	Won't run	92Excellent quality (A+) · 92 of 100: how capable the model is at F16, whatever it runs on. Match score 12/100 (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

91Excellent quality (A+) · 91 of 100: how capable the model is at Q6_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 95/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. Apple M2 Ultra (192 GB) Q6_K · 48.4 tok/s · Runs great
91Excellent quality (A+) · 91 of 100: how capable the model is at Q6_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 95/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. Apple M3 Ultra (256 GB) Q6_K · 49.4 tok/s · Runs great
89Excellent quality (A+) · 89 of 100: how capable the model is at Q5_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 94/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Q5_K_M · 111 tok/s · Runs well (tight fit)
87Excellent quality (A+) · 87 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 93/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. Apple M4 Max (128 GB) Q4_K_M · 48.3 tok/s · Runs well (tight fit)
87Excellent quality (A+) · 87 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 92/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. NVIDIA RTX Spark N1X (6144-core GPU) (128 GB) Q4_K_M · 32.8 tok/s · Runs great
87Excellent quality (A+) · 87 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 92/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. NVIDIA GB10 (128 GB) Q4_K_M · 30.1 tok/s · Runs great

Quick answers

How much memory does Qwen3.5 122B-A10B need on the M5 Ultra 96GB?

At Q3_K_M it needs about 67.9 GB. The M5 Ultra 96GB has 72.0 GB usable.

How fast is Qwen3.5 122B-A10B on the M5 Ultra 96GB?

About 107 tok/s at Q3_K_M, an estimate from the hardware’s memory bandwidth and the size of the model.

Which quantization of Qwen3.5 122B-A10B should I use on the M5 Ultra 96GB?

Q3_K_M. 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.