Hardware · Apple Silicon
What AI models can the Apple M3 Ultra (256 GB) run?
- Unified memory
- 256 GB
- Usable for models
- 192 GB
- Memory bandwidth
- 819 GB/s
- FP16 compute
- 28.4 TFLOPS
- Released
- 2025
macOS lets the GPU use roughly two-thirds to three-quarters of unified memory by default, so we plan around that figure rather than the full 256 GB.
More about this hardware
| Maker | Apple Silicon |
|---|---|
| Type | Apple silicon (two dies joined) |
| Chip | Apple M3 Ultra |
Apps that run models well on the Apple M3 Ultra (256 GB)
1 product with the Apple M3 Ultra (256 GB)
Best LLMs for the Apple M3 Ultra (256 GB)
| Quality | Model | Quant | Memory | Speed | Runs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 93Excellent quality (A+) · 93 of 100: how capable the model is at Q5_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 97/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | Qwen3.8 Flash Next (125B-A6B) | Q5_K_M | 144 GB | 84.1 tok/s | Runs great |
| 92Excellent quality (A+) · 92 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. | Nemotron 3.5 Super VL 120B-A12B | Q6_K | 118 GB | 42.4 tok/s | Runs great |
| 90Excellent quality (A+) · 90 of 100: how capable the model is at Q5_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 95/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | Step 3.7 Flash (198B-A11B) | Q5_K_M | 159 GB | 53.0 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. | Ornith 1.5 122B-A10B | Q6_K | 119 GB | 49.4 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. | Qwen3.5 122B-A10B | Q6_K | 119 GB | 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 95/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | Step 3.5 Flash (196B-A11B) | Q5_K_M | 158 GB | 53.0 tok/s | Runs great |
| 88Excellent quality (A+) · 88 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 94/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | MiniMax M2.7 (230B-A10B) | Q4_K_M | 158 GB | 67.0 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 94/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | MiniMax M2.5 (230B-A10B) | Q4_K_M | 158 GB | 67.0 tok/s | Runs great |
| 89Excellent quality (A+) · 89 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 94/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | Inkling Small (276B-A12B) | Q4_K_M | 178 GB | 58.0 tok/s | Runs welltight fit |
| 86Excellent quality (A+) · 86 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. | MiniMax M2.1 (230B-A10B) | Q4_K_M | 158 GB | 67.0 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. | Laguna S 2.1 (118B-A8B) | Q8_0 | 142 GB | 45.5 tok/s | Runs great |
| 87Excellent quality (A+) · 87 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. | Nemotron 3 Super 120B-A12B | Q6_K | 117 GB | 42.4 tok/s | Runs great |
Best Image models for the Apple M3 Ultra (256 GB)
| Quality | Model | Quant | Memory | Speed | Runs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 92Excellent quality (A+) · 92 of 100: how capable the model is at FP16, whatever it runs on. Match score 85/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | Cosmos3-Super Text2Image (64B) | FP16 | 133 GB | 2.8 min | Very slow |
| 92Excellent quality (A+) · 92 of 100: how capable the model is at FP16, whatever it runs on. Match score 84/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | FLUX.2 [dev] | FP16 | 116 GB | 2.5 min | Very slow |
| 91Excellent quality (A+) · 91 of 100: how capable the model is at FP8, whatever it runs on. Match score 82/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | MiniMax H3 Image | FP8 | 72.0 GB | 38 s | Runs well |
| 84Great quality (A) · 84 of 100: how capable the model is at FP16, whatever it runs on. Match score 82/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | FLUX.2 [klein] 9B | FP16 | 37.1 GB | 7.6 s | Runs great |
| 92Excellent quality (A+) · 92 of 100: how capable the model is at FP16, whatever it runs on. Match score 82/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | Krea 2 Turbo | FP16 | 37.4 GB | 18 s | Runs well |
| 84Great quality (A) · 84 of 100: how capable the model is at FP16, whatever it runs on. Match score 80/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | Z-Image Turbo | FP16 | 22.7 GB | 11 s | Runs great |
Best Video models for the Apple M3 Ultra (256 GB)
| Quality | Model | Quant | Memory | Speed | Runs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 88Excellent quality (A+) · 88 of 100: how capable the model is at FP16, whatever it runs on. Match score 84/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | LTX-2.5 (22B, video + audio) | FP16 | 82.5 GB | 6.4 min | Runs well |
| 90Excellent quality (A+) · 90 of 100: how capable the model is at FP16, whatever it runs on. Match score 82/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | MiniMax H3 (33B, video + audio) | FP16 | 113 GB | 73.3 min | Very slow |
| 88Excellent quality (A+) · 88 of 100: how capable the model is at FP16, whatever it runs on. Match score 81/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | Cosmos3-Super Image2Video (64B) | FP16 | 139 GB | 2.6 h | Very slow |
| 86Excellent quality (A+) · 86 of 100: how capable the model is at FP16, whatever it runs on. Match score 77/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | LTX-2.3 | FP16 | 75.4 GB | 28.2 min | Slow |
| 88Excellent quality (A+) · 88 of 100: how capable the model is at FP16, whatever it runs on. Match score 76/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | Kandinsky 6.0 Pro (29B, video + audio) | FP16 | 85.4 GB | 3.5 h | Very slow |
Best Decision models for the Apple M3 Ultra (256 GB)
| Quality | Model | Quant | Memory | Speed | Runs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 86Excellent quality (A+) · 86 of 100: how capable the model is at F16, whatever it runs on. Match score 93/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | Jina Reranker v3.5 | F16 | 17.4 GB | 24 ms | Runs great |
| 90Excellent quality (A+) · 90 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. | Qwen3 Reranker 4B | Q8_0 | 20.5 GB | 130 ms | Runs great |
| 84Great quality (A) · 84 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. | Intern-Decision 4B | F16 | 25.1 GB | 92 ms | Runs great |
| 84Great quality (A) · 84 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. | Jina Reranker v3 | F16 | 17.4 GB | 24 ms | Runs great |
| 88Excellent quality (A+) · 88 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 92/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | zerank-2 | Q8_0 | 20.5 GB | 130 ms | Runs great |
| 86Excellent quality (A+) · 86 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 92/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | Shieldstral 1.0 3B | Q8_0 | 20.3 GB | 125 ms | Runs great |
| 82Great quality (A) · 82 of 100: how capable the model is at F16, whatever it runs on. Match score 91/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | d1 3B | F16 | 22.2 GB | 65 ms | Runs great |
| 82Great quality (A) · 82 of 100: how capable the model is at F16, whatever it runs on. Match score 91/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | mxbai-rerank-large v2 | F16 | 19.1 GB | 56 ms | Runs great |
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.