Snowflake Arctic Instruct on Apple M1 Max (32 GB)

Can the Apple M1 Max (32 GB) run Snowflake Arctic Instruct?

No, it doesn’t fit

No. Snowflake Arctic Instruct needs about 194 GB even at Q2_K; the Apple M1 Max (32 GB) has 21.4 GB usable.

Download Snowflake Arctic Instruct

Original weights · Hugging Face

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

huggingface.co/Snowflake/snowflake-arctic-instruct (opens in a new tab)

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

How it’s rated

Quality 35Basic quality (D) · 35 of 100: how capable the model is at Q2_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 4/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.: How capable the model itself is at Q2_K, 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 Won't run: How well it runs on the Apple M1 Max (32 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.	4.7 / 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.	0.0 / 25
SpeedGeneration speed against a 40 tokens/s target for LLMs, or render time against a target for image and video.	0.0 / 15
Memory useRewards using the memory you have, so a bigger, better variant beats a tiny one that leaves most memory idle.	0.0 / 15
Match score	4.7 / 100

The match score orders results; it is not shown as a grade. Quality and Runs are the two ratings in the tables.

It doesn’t fit, so only a reduced share of the quality points counts and fit, speed and memory use score zero.

Every quantization on the Apple M1 Max (32 GB)

Quant	Memory needed	Available	Speed	Runs	Quality	Download
`Q2_K`	194 GB	21.4 GB	—	Won't run	35Basic quality (D) · 35 of 100: how capable the model is at Q2_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 4/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	All files (opens in a new tab)
`Q3_K_M`	237 GB	21.4 GB	—	Won't run	42Fair quality (C) · 42 of 100: how capable the model is at Q3_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 5/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	All files (opens in a new tab)
`Q4_K_M`	295 GB	21.4 GB	—	Won't run	47Fair quality (C) · 47 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 6/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	All files (opens in a new tab)
`Q5_K_M`	343 GB	21.4 GB	—	Won't run	48Fair quality (C) · 48 of 100: how capable the model is at Q5_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 6/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	All files (opens in a new tab)
`Q6_K`	395 GB	21.4 GB	—	Won't run	49Fair quality (C) · 49 of 100: how capable the model is at Q6_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 6/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	All files (opens in a new tab)
`Q8_0`	510 GB	21.4 GB	—	Won't run	50Fair quality (C) · 50 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 6/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	All files (opens in a new tab)
`F16`	960 GB	21.4 GB	—	Won't run	50Fair quality (C) · 50 of 100: how capable the model is at F16, whatever it runs on. Match score 6/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	Original weights (opens in a new tab)

Memory figures assume 4K of context. Longer conversations or documents grow the KV cache.

Hardware that can run it

47Fair quality (C) · 47 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 76/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. Apple M3 Ultra (512 GB) Q4_K_M · 43.5 tok/s · Runs great
35Basic quality (D) · 35 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. Apple M3 Ultra (256 GB) Q2_K · 56.4 tok/s · Runs well (over GPU memory limit)
47Fair quality (C) · 47 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 76/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. Apple M5 Ultra (512 GB) Q4_K_M · 59.6 tok/s · Runs great
42Fair quality (C) · 42 of 100: how capable the model is at Q3_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 72/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. AMD Instinct MI325X Q3_K_M · 188 tok/s · Runs well (tight fit)
42Fair quality (C) · 42 of 100: how capable the model is at Q3_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 72/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. AMD Instinct MI350X Q3_K_M · 209 tok/s · Runs well (tight fit)
42Fair quality (C) · 42 of 100: how capable the model is at Q3_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 72/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. NVIDIA GB300 Grace Blackwell Ultra Desktop Superchip Q3_K_M · 211 tok/s · Runs well (tight fit)

Models that do run on the Apple M1 Max (32 GB)

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. Gemma 4 26B-A4B Q5_K_M · 69.5 tok/s
83Great quality (A) · 83 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 91/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. Raon-1 mini Preview (30B-A4B) Q4_K_M · 73.9 tok/s
78Great quality (A) · 78 of 100: how capable the model is at Q3_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 89/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. Qwen3.6 35B-A3B Q3_K_M · 115 tok/s
78Great quality (A) · 78 of 100: how capable the model is at Q3_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 89/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. MiniCPM-V 4.7 35B-A3B Q3_K_M · 115 tok/s
78Great quality (A) · 78 of 100: how capable the model is at Q3_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 89/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. Qwen3.5 35B-A3B Q3_K_M · 115 tok/s

Quick answers

How much memory does Snowflake Arctic Instruct need on the M1 Max 32GB?

Even at Q2_K it needs about 194 GB; the M1 Max 32GB has 21.4 GB usable.

What can the M1 Max 32GB run instead?

Gemma 4 26B-A4B, Raon-1 mini Preview (30B-A4B) and Qwen3.6 35B-A3B run best on it; the page lists more, each with its speed.

What hardware can run Snowflake Arctic Instruct?

M3 Ultra 512GB, M3 Ultra 256GB and M5 Ultra 512GB run it; the page lists more, each with its speed.

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.