18GB VRAM

Mac M3 Pro 18G — what LLMs can it run?

53 of 79 indexed models fit comfortably in 18GB at 4K context, each at the highest-quality quant that still leaves headroom.

32B · 7

Mac M3 Pro 18G — what LLMs can it run? — 32B
ModelQuantEst. VRAMHeadroomtok/s
Qwen3-VL 30B-A3B Instruct30B-A3BQ3_K_M15.83 GB+2.2 GB104
Gemma 2 27B Instruct27BAWQ INT415.79 GB+2.2 GB58
Mistral Small 24B Instruct24BEXL2 4.65bpw15.26 GB+2.7 GB88
Devstral Small 1.1 24B24BEXL2 4.65bpw15.02 GB+3 GB88
Magistral Small 1.2 24B24BEXL2 4.65bpw15.02 GB+3 GB86
Codestral 22B22BQ4_K_M15.03 GB+3 GB58
GPT-OSS 20B21B MoEMXFP411.81 GB+6.2 GB195

14B · 17

Mac M3 Pro 18G — what LLMs can it run? — 14B
ModelQuantEst. VRAMHeadroomtok/s
InternLM2 20B Chat20BQ5_K_M15.59 GB+2.4 GB68
DeepSeek-Coder-V2-Lite Instruct16BQ4_K_M10.87 GB+7.1 GB145
DeepSeek-V2-Lite Chat16BQ4_K_M10.87 GB+7.1 GB142
StarCoder2 15B15BQ4_K_M10.19 GB+7.8 GB92
Qwen3 14B Instruct14BQ5_K_M11.65 GB+6.4 GB78
Qwen2.5 14B Instruct14BQ5_K_M11.73 GB+6.3 GB86
DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-14B14BEXL2 4.65bpw9.75 GB+8.3 GB128
Phi-4 14B14BQ5_K_M11.77 GB+6.2 GB78
Phi-3 Medium 14B Instruct14BQ6_K12.86 GB+5.1 GB88
Mistral Nemo 12B Instruct12BQ6_K11.14 GB+6.9 GB95
Gemma 3 12B IT12BQ5_K_M10.6 GB+7.4 GB92
Stable LM 2 12B Chat12BQ4_K_M8.35 GB+9.7 GB108
Jamba 1.5 Mini12BQ4_K_M8.15 GB+9.9 GB95
Llama 3.2 11B Vision Instruct11BQ8_012.9 GB+5.1 GB72
Solar 10.7B Instruct11BQ4_K_M7.6 GB+10.4 GB125
Falcon 3 10B Instruct10BQ4_K_M7.28 GB+10.7 GB118
Gemma 2 9B Instruct9BQ8_011.7 GB+6.3 GB108

7B · 19

Mac M3 Pro 18G — what LLMs can it run? — 7B
ModelQuantEst. VRAMHeadroomtok/s
GLM-4-9B-Chat9BQ8_010.16 GB+7.8 GB105
Qwen3-VL 8B Instruct8BQ8_010.39 GB+7.6 GB108
Qwen2-VL 7B Instruct7BQ4_K_M5.49 GB+12.5 GB72
Granite 3.1 8B Instruct8BQ4_K_M5.88 GB+12.1 GB142
Qwen3 8B Instruct8BQ6_K7.64 GB+10.4 GB122
Llama 3.1 8B Instruct8BQ8_09.47 GB+8.5 GB118
Nous Hermes 3 Llama 3.1 8B8BEXL2 4.65bpw5.43 GB+12.6 GB232
Aya 23 8B8BQ4_K_M5.64 GB+12.4 GB145
OpenChat 3.6 8B8BEXL2 4.65bpw5.43 GB+12.6 GB228
DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Llama-8B8BQ5_K_M6.51 GB+11.5 GB128
InternLM2 7B Chat7BQ4_K_M5.45 GB+12.6 GB148
Qwen2.5 7B Instruct7BQ6_K6.77 GB+11.2 GB132
Qwen2.5-Coder 7B Instruct7BEXL2 4.65bpw4.87 GB+13.1 GB248
WizardLM-2 7B7BQ4_K_M5.07 GB+12.9 GB152
DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-7B7BEXL2 4.65bpw4.87 GB+13.1 GB210
OLMo 2 7B Instruct7BQ8_010.3 GB+7.7 GB125
Mistral 7B Instruct v0.37BQ6_K6.75 GB+11.3 GB135
Zephyr 7B Beta7BQ6_K6.75 GB+11.3 GB132
Gemma 3 4B IT4BQ8_05.36 GB+12.6 GB145

≤3B · 10

Mac M3 Pro 18G — what LLMs can it run? — ≤3B
ModelQuantEst. VRAMHeadroomtok/s
Qwen3 4B Instruct4BQ6_K4.05 GB+14 GB145
Phi-4 Mini Instruct3.8BQ8_04.68 GB+13.3 GB262
Phi-3.5 Mini Instruct3.8BQ8_05.89 GB+12.1 GB255
Llama 3.2 3B Instruct3BQ8_04.05 GB+14 GB285
Qwen2.5 3B Instruct3BQ8_03.67 GB+14.3 GB290
Gemma 2 2B Instruct2BQ8_03.34 GB+14.7 GB320
Qwen3 1.7B Instruct1.7BQ8_02.39 GB+15.6 GB240
Qwen2.5 1.5B Instruct1.5BQ8_01.83 GB+16.2 GB410
Llama 3.2 1B Instruct1BQ8_01.51 GB+16.5 GB450
Qwen2.5 0.5B Instruct0.5BQ8_00.6 GB+17.4 GB540

How this list is built

Each row is the lowest-perplexity-loss quant of that model whose estimated total — weights plus KV cache at 4K context plus activation buffer — uses at most 88% of the card. That is the calculator's "green" threshold, so every row here has real headroom rather than only just fitting. Raise the context length and the list shortens; the calculator lets you check any combination directly.

Open this card in the VRAM calculator Browse all 79 models

Stepping up

A Mac M3 Pro 36G (36GB) fits 11 more of the indexed models than this card. Mac M3 Pro 36G →

53 of 79 indexed models fit comfortably in 18GB at 4K context, each at the highest-quality quant that still leaves headroom.