Can MacBook Pro M5 16 GB run Qwen3 30B-A3B Instruct 2507?
16 GB unified · 153 GB/s memory bandwidth · Qwen3 30B-A3B Instruct 2507 has 30.5B parameters (3.3B active per token).
Short answer
No. It doesn't fit in memory.
Needs ≈14 GB but only ≈8.5 GB is available after the OS, other apps and Open WebUI.
Why it doesn’t fit
Even its smallest practical version (3-bit) needs about 14 GB for the model, its context memory and the runtime. After macOS (≈3.5 GB), a browser with a few tabs (≈3.0 GB) and Open WebUI (≈1.0 GB), MacBook Pro M5 16 GB has about 8.5 GB left, so it’s 5.7 GB short.
Ways to make it work
Close everything else
Not enough on its own: with every other app closed it’s still about 2.7 GB short.
Pick a smaller model from the same family
Get more memory
The same chip with 24 GB handles it: Comfortable.
Check your exact setup
These pages assume typical settings. A shorter context or a lighter chat app can change the answer.
Check MacBook Pro M5 16 GB
The same applies to every workload we rate (chat, coding questions, coding in a repository, agentic coding and long documents): they all need at least as much memory as chat.
Other models for MacBook Pro M5 16 GB
The best-rated models for chat on this machine.
- MiniCPM5 2B25–45 tok/sExcellent
- Qwen3.5 4B19–30 tok/sExcellent
- Llama 3.2 3B Instruct25–45 tok/sExcellent
- Gemma 4 E4B16–25 tok/sExcellent
- Llama 3.1 8B Instruct15–25 tok/sExcellent
- Qwen2.5-Coder 7B Instruct17–30 tok/sExcellent
Cheapest machines for Qwen3 30B-A3B Instruct 2507
Hardware rated comfortable or better for chat, lowest price first.
- Laptop · Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 (Radeon 890M) · 32 GB$1,300 · 20–35 tok/sComfortable
- Laptop · Core Ultra 7 258V (Arc 140V) · 32 GB$1,300 · 17–30 tok/sComfortable
- Mac mini M4 32 GB$1,399 · 25–35 tok/sExcellent
- Desktop PC · Ryzen 9 9950X (no GPU) · 64 GB DDR5$1,400 · 11–18 tok/sComfortable
- Desktop PC · Intel Arc Pro B60 24GB · 32 GB RAM$1,500 · 60–95 tok/sExcellent
- Ryzen AI Max+ 395 mini PC / Framework Desktop · 64 GB$1,600 · 50–65 tok/sExcellent
Different tool, context size or workload?
These pages use typical settings. The full check models your exact setup.