Llama 3.1 70B Instruct on Apple M3 Pro (18GB Unified)
Apple M3 Pro (18GB Unified) cannot run Llama 3.1 70B Instruct at any quantization level. The 18 GB of VRAM is insufficient.
Model Size
70.6B
Device VRAM
18 GB
Bandwidth
150 GB/s
Quantizations Tested
1
Performance by Quantization
Each row shows Llama 3.1 70B Instruct performance at a different quality level on Apple M3 Pro (18GB Unified).
| Quantization | Speed | TTFT | Fits in VRAM | Rating | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Q2_K | — | — | ✗ Offload | Not Viable | estimated |
Notes
Q2_K
70B doesn't fit in 18GB unified.
About Llama 3.1 70B Instruct
Llama 3.1 70B Instruct (70.6B) is a chat, coding, ai coding, reasoning, multi-purpose model. Frontier-class open model. Approaches GPT-4 quality on many benchmarks. Requires significant VRAM — 48GB+ recommended for usable quantizations. Excellent for serious local deployment.
View all Llama 3.1 70B Instruct hardware options →About Apple M3 Pro (18GB Unified)
Apple M3 Pro (18GB Unified) has 18 GB at 150 GB/s. Available in MacBook Pro 14", MacBook Pro 16".
See all models Apple M3 Pro (18GB Unified) can run →Source: MLX performance estimates (2026-03-15)
Data last updated: 2026-03-01