Apple MacBook Air (15-inch, M3, 2024)

Products · · Laptop

Apple MacBook Air (15-inch, M3, 2024)

Chip
Apple M3
Unified memory
8, 16 or 24 GB
Launch price
$1,299–$1,699
Released
2024

Product page (opens in a new tab) Full AI report

Configurations

Pick one to see which models it runs. More memory lets larger models fit; bandwidth sets how fast they answer.

Configuration Memory Usable for AI Bandwidth LLMs that run well Launch price
Apple M3 · 8-core CPU, 10-core GPU 8.0 GB 5.4 GB 100 GB/s 273 of 622 $1,299
Apple M3 · 8-core CPU, 10-core GPU 16.0 GB 10.7 GB 100 GB/s 343 of 622 $1,499
Apple M3 · 8-core CPU, 10-core GPU 24.0 GB 16.1 GB 100 GB/s 379 of 622 $1,699

Specifications 8.0 GB configuration

MakerApple
TypeLaptop
ChipApple M3 (8 GB) · 8-core CPU, 10-core GPU
Unified memory8.0 GB
Usable for AI models5.4 GB
Memory bandwidth100 GB/s
FP16 compute4.1 TFLOPS
Notesfanless
Product pagesupport.apple.com (opens in a new tab)

Best LLMs for the Apple MacBook Air (15-inch, M3, 2024) 8.0 GB

Quality Model Quant Memory Speed Runs
58Good quality (B) · 58 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 81/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. Gemma 4 E2BGoogle Q4_K_M 4.2 GB 46.0 tok/s Runs great
64Good quality (B) · 64 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 81/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. Nemotron Labs Dory 1.0 4BNVIDIA Q4_K_M 3.9 GB 26.6 tok/s Runs well
62Good quality (B) · 62 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 80/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. Spark-X2.6 4BSparkLLM Q4_K_M 3.8 GB 25.7 tok/s Runs well
64Good quality (B) · 64 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 80/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. Nanbeige4.2 3BBOSS Zhipin (Nanbeige) Q4_K_M 5.0 GB 25.3 tok/s Runs welltight fit
58Good quality (B) · 58 of 100: how capable the model is at Q3_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 78/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. Nemotron 3.5 Bolt E4BNVIDIA Q3_K_M 5.1 GB 30.4 tok/s Runs welltight fit
57Good quality (B) · 57 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 78/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. MiniCPM5 2BOpenBMB Q4_K_M 2.9 GB 41.9 tok/s Runs great
57Good quality (B) · 57 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 77/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. TMax 4BAi2 Q4_K_M 3.9 GB 25.1 tok/s Runs well
58Good quality (B) · 58 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 77/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. Qwen3.5 4BAlibaba Q4_K_M 4.1 GB 22.7 tok/s Runs well
57Good quality (B) · 57 of 100: how capable the model is at Q3_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 77/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. Gemma 4 E4BGoogle Q3_K_M 5.1 GB 30.4 tok/s Runs welltight fit
57Good quality (B) · 57 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 77/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. Agents-A1 4BInternScience Q4_K_M 4.1 GB 23.3 tok/s Runs well

Best Image models for the Apple MacBook Air (15-inch, M3, 2024) 8.0 GB

Quality Model Quant Memory Speed Runs
72Great quality (A) · 72 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4 GGUF, whatever it runs on. Match score 75/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. FLUX.2 [klein] 4BBlack Forest Labs Q4 GGUF 4.6 GB 23 s Runs welltight fit · encoder unloaded after use
39Basic quality (D) · 39 of 100: how capable the model is at FP8, whatever it runs on. Match score 72/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. SDXL TurboStability AI FP8 4.2 GB 2.4 s Runs great
89Excellent quality (A+) · 89 of 100: how capable the model is at FP8, whatever it runs on. Match score 71/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. FLUX 3 Image KleinBlack Forest Labs FP8 4.2 GB 2.0 min SlowCPU offload
82Great quality (A) · 82 of 100: how capable the model is at FP8, whatever it runs on. Match score 70/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. Z-Image TurboAlibaba (Tongyi) FP8 4.4 GB 53 s SlowCPU offload
52Fair quality (C) · 52 of 100: how capable the model is at FP8, whatever it runs on. Match score 70/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. SDXL-Lightning (4-step)ByteDance FP8 4.7 GB 12 s Runs welltight fit · encoder unloaded after use
78Great quality (A) · 78 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4 GGUF, whatever it runs on. Match score 68/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. FLUX.2 [klein] 9BBlack Forest Labs Q4 GGUF 4.3 GB 51 s SlowCPU offload

Best Video models for the Apple MacBook Air (15-inch, M3, 2024) 8.0 GB

Quality Model Quant Memory Speed Runs
35Basic quality (D) · 35 of 100: how capable the model is at FP16, whatever it runs on. Match score 64/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. AnimateDiff v3 (SD 1.5)Shanghai AI Lab FP16 4.7 GB 6.0 min Runs welltight fit
49Fair quality (C) · 49 of 100: how capable the model is at FP8, whatever it runs on. Match score 57/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. LTX-Video 2BLightricks FP8 4.0 GB 8.8 min Runs wellCPU offload
44Fair quality (C) · 44 of 100: how capable the model is at FP8, whatever it runs on. Match score 50/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. CogVideoX 2BZhipu AI FP8 4.7 GB 21.1 min Slowtight fit · CPU offload

Best Decision models for the Apple MacBook Air (15-inch, M3, 2024) 8.0 GB

Quality Model Quant Memory Speed Runs
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. Jina Reranker v3.5Jina AI Q8_0 1.9 GB 136 ms Runs well
80Great quality (A) · 80 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. FRIDA-DecisionsSber AI Q8_0 1.7 GB 94 ms Runs great
80Great quality (A) · 80 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. GLiNER2.5 DecideFastino F16 1.7 GB 66 ms Runs great
84Great quality (A) · 84 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 90/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. Jina Reranker v3Jina AI Q8_0 1.9 GB 136 ms Runs well
76Great quality (A) · 76 of 100: how capable the model is at F16, whatever it runs on. Match score 89/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. Llama Prompt Guard 2 86MMeta F16 1.2 GB 74 ms Runs great
80Great quality (A) · 80 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 88/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. Qwen3 Reranker 0.6BAlibaba Q8_0 1.9 GB 136 ms Runs well
76Great quality (A) · 76 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 88/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. mxbai-rerank-base v2Mixedbread Q8_0 1.6 GB 112 ms Runs great
74Great quality (A) · 74 of 100: how capable the model is at F16, whatever it runs on. Match score 88/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. GLiClass ModernBERT Large v3Knowledgator F16 1.5 GB 54 ms Runs great

Other products with the Apple M3 (8 GB)

Spec sources

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.

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