// RUN โ€” FITS

Can the Apple M1 Ultra 64GB run Qwen3-1.7B?

Yes โ€” here's how fast and up to what context, with real measured numbers.

Qwen3-1.7B on the Apple M1 Ultra 64GB

QuantFits?Max contextSpeedBeyond context
FP16 yes 804k 160-192.9 t/s ~2-2.4 (slow)
Q8 yes 830k 320-385.9 t/s ~4-4.8 (slow)
Q4 yes 841k 571.4-689.1 t/s ~7.1-8.6 (slow)

Estimate (memory-bound). Beyond "max context" the KV cache spills to SSD swap and speed drops to the "beyond" figure.

FAQ

Can the Apple M1 Ultra 64GB run Qwen3-1.7B?โ–ถ

Yes. At Q4 it generates ~571.4-689.1 tok/s and fits up to 841k context; beyond that it spills to SSD swap and slows to ~7.1-8.6 tok/s.

How much context fits?โ–ถ

At Q4, up to about 841k tokens stay in fast memory; longer context spills to SSD swap and throughput collapses.