Qwen3 Coder 30B-A3B
Qwen3 Coder 30B-A3B loads in 18.6 GB at Q4_K_M and decodes at the speed of its 3.3B active path, comfortably from 36 GB of memory, Macs included, starting at the MacBook Pro M5 Pro 48GB. Below is the memory math we ran for it, the smallest card that fits, and the fastest machine we track.
- Parameters
- 30.5B(3.3B active)
- Format
- Q4_K_M
- Min memory
- 32 GB
- Best for
- Coding, Agentic coding, Long context
How much memory does Qwen3 Coder 30B-A3B need?
Qwen3 Coder 30B-A3B is a 30.5B mixture-of-experts model (3.3B active per token) built for coding, agentic coding, long context. The weights alone take 18.6 GB at Q4_K_M; add context and the OS, and it belongs in the 36 GB memory class. Every number below comes from the ModelFit engine: speeds are estimates, labeled est., because we do not benchmark hardware ourselves.
KV = fp16 estimate (q8_0 cache roughly halves it). "Comfortable" = weights + KV within the engine's tiered budget (~70-85% of memory).
Which machines run Qwen3 Coder 30B-A3B?
- Smallest GPU
- AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTXest. 139 tok/s · 24 GB VRAMtypical error 25%
- Fastest
- NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090est. 287 tok/stypical error 15%
- Runs on a Mac?
- MacBook Pro M5 Pro 48GBest. 73 tok/stypical error 10%
Verdicts come from the same engine that powers our fit checker: memory capacity first, bandwidth for speed. How we compute these numbers · What typical error means · Hugging Face model card
Go deeper
- Also tracked: Qwen3 Coder 30B-A3B (Q8)(Q8_0, 32.5 GB, min 48 GB)
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Frequently asked questions
How much memory does Qwen3 Coder 30B-A3B need?
18.6 GB for the Q4_K_M weights, plus ~4.0 GB of KV-cache at 16k context, about 22.6 GB total. Comfortable from 36 GB of VRAM or unified memory.
Does Qwen3 Coder 30B-A3B run on a Mac?
Yes, from the MacBook Pro M5 Pro 48GB (est. 73 tok/s, typical error 10%). Unified memory means the RAM budget is the only limit.
What is the smallest GPU for Qwen3 Coder 30B-A3B?
The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX (24 GB VRAM) is the smallest tracked card that runs Qwen3 Coder 30B-A3B comfortably, est. 139 tok/s, typical error 25%.
Cite this page
ModelFit: Qwen3 Coder 30B-A3B, specs, memory math and hardware verdicts. https://modelfit.io/models/qwen3-coder-30b-a3b/ (dataset updated 2026-10-31, CC BY 4.0).