Model Anatomy See what's inside open-weight AI models

Can I run Qwen3-8B-MLX-8bit on a Mac with 16 GB?

Yes

Its published weights (8.45 GB) fit in the 10.7 GB a Mac with 16 GB can use, with room for ≈ 15K tokens of context.

Full analysis of Qwen3-8B-MLX-8bit Everything that runs on Mac with 16 GB Get the weights on Hugging Face
hf download Qwen/Qwen3-8B-MLX-8bit

Files and context on Mac with 16 GB

Each file of Qwen3-8B-MLX-8bit (and of GGUF versions the site has analyzed), and how much context fits next to it, with the context cache in 16-bit or 8-bit.

FileSizeOn Mac with 16 GB Context (16-bit)Context (8-bit)
As published8.45 GBFits15K29K
4-bit (estimate)4.61 GBFits40K40K

Qwen3-8B-MLX-8bit on other hardware

Popular models that run on Mac with 16 GB

Assumes 67% of the Mac's memory is usable (macOS's default limit for the GPU; it can be raised) and at least 4K tokens of context for one conversation, with the context cache in 16-bit unless noted. Fits leaves at least 20% of that memory for context; Tight leaves less.