Canonical Rankings

Best Macs for this model

Qwen3.6-27B ranked across the Mac lineup at the best practical quantization, using the best available runtime evidence. Model picker is focused on current-market choices.

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29 ranked MacsUse the strongest current runtime evidence for each row.28 historical models hiddenBaselinesStatic paths cover only canonical model pages; sort and quantization stay as query state.

Rank	Mac	Score	Quant	Tok/s	Runtime	Fits	Headroom	Context	Evidence	Price	Why it ranks here
1	Mac Studio M3 Ultra 256GB	361	8bit	16.6 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 16.6 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	228.4 GB	262k	Estimated	$7,499	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 16.6 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 228.4 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
2	Mac Pro M2 Ultra 192GB	297	8bit	16.6 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 16.6 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	164.4 GB	262k	Estimated	$6,999	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 16.6 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 164.4 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
3	Mac Studio M4 Max 128GB	233	8bit	16.6 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 16.6 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	100.4 GB	262k	Estimated	$4,499	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 16.6 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 100.4 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
4	MacBook Pro M5 Max 128GB 16-inch	233	8bit	16.6 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 16.6 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	100.4 GB	262k	Estimated	$5,399	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 16.6 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 100.4 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
5	MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB 16-inch	233	8bit	16.6 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 16.6 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	100.4 GB	262k	Estimated	$5,999	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 16.6 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 100.4 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
6	Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB	201	8bit	16.6 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 16.6 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	68.4 GB	229k	Estimated	$3,999	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 16.6 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 68.4 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
7	Mac Studio M4 Max 64GB	169	8bit	16.6 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 16.6 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	36.4 GB	118k	Estimated	$2,999	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 16.6 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 36.4 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
8	MacBook Pro M4 Max 64GB 16-inch	169	8bit	16.6 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 16.6 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	36.4 GB	118k	Estimated	$4,499	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 16.6 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 36.4 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
9	Mac Mini M4 Pro 48GB	153	8bit	16.6 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 16.6 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	20.4 GB	62k	Estimated	$1,599	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 16.6 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 20.4 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
10	MacBook Pro M4 Pro 48GB 14-inch	153	8bit	16.6 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 16.6 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	20.4 GB	62k	Estimated	$2,499	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 16.6 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 20.4 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
11	Mac Studio M4 Max 48GB	153	8bit	16.6 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 16.6 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	20.4 GB	62k	Estimated	$2,499	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 16.6 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 20.4 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
12	MacBook Pro M4 Pro 48GB 16-inch	153	8bit	16.6 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 16.6 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	20.4 GB	62k	Estimated	$2,999	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 16.6 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 20.4 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
13	MacBook Pro M4 Max 48GB 14-inch	153	8bit	16.6 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 16.6 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	20.4 GB	62k	Estimated	$3,499	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 16.6 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 20.4 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
14	MacBook Pro M4 Max 48GB 16-inch	153	8bit	16.6 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 16.6 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	20.4 GB	62k	Estimated	$3,999	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 16.6 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 20.4 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
15	Mac Studio M4 Max 36GB	141	8bit	16.6 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 16.6 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	8.4 GB	20k	Estimated	$1,999	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 16.6 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 8.4 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
16	MacBook Pro M4 Max 36GB 14-inch	141	8bit	16.6 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 16.6 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	8.4 GB	20k	Estimated	$2,999	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 16.6 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 8.4 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
17	MacBook Pro M4 Max 36GB 16-inch	141	8bit	16.6 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 16.6 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	8.4 GB	20k	Estimated	$3,499	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 16.6 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 8.4 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
18	Mac Mini M4 32GB	135	Q6_K	16.6 tok/s Fastest evidence path: Q6_K · 16.6 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	8.9 GB	25k	Estimated	$799	Q6_K is the current best practical quantization. 16.6 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 8.9 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
19	MacBook Air M4 32GB 13-inch	135	Q6_K	16.6 tok/s Fastest evidence path: Q6_K · 16.6 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	8.9 GB	25k	Estimated	$1,499	Q6_K is the current best practical quantization. 16.6 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 8.9 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
20	MacBook Air M4 32GB 15-inch	135	Q6_K	16.6 tok/s Fastest evidence path: Q6_K · 16.6 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	8.9 GB	25k	Estimated	$1,699	Q6_K is the current best practical quantization. 16.6 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 8.9 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
21	Mac Mini M4 24GB	130	Q5_K_M	16.6 tok/s Fastest evidence path: Q5_K_M · 16.6 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	3.6 GB	8k	Estimated	$599	Q5_K_M is the current best practical quantization. 16.6 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 3.6 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
22	MacBook Air M4 24GB 13-inch	130	Q5_K_M	16.6 tok/s Fastest evidence path: Q5_K_M · 16.6 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	3.6 GB	8k	Estimated	$1,299	Q5_K_M is the current best practical quantization. 16.6 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 3.6 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
23	Mac Mini M4 Pro 24GB	130	Q5_K_M	16.6 tok/s Fastest evidence path: Q5_K_M · 16.6 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	3.6 GB	8k	Estimated	$1,399	Q5_K_M is the current best practical quantization. 16.6 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 3.6 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
24	MacBook Air M4 24GB 15-inch	130	Q5_K_M	16.6 tok/s Fastest evidence path: Q5_K_M · 16.6 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	3.6 GB	8k	Estimated	$1,499	Q5_K_M is the current best practical quantization. 16.6 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 3.6 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
25	MacBook Pro M4 Pro 24GB 14-inch	130	Q5_K_M	16.6 tok/s Fastest evidence path: Q5_K_M · 16.6 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	3.6 GB	8k	Estimated	$1,999	Q5_K_M is the current best practical quantization. 16.6 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 3.6 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
26	MacBook Pro M4 Pro 24GB 16-inch	130	Q5_K_M	16.6 tok/s Fastest evidence path: Q5_K_M · 16.6 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	3.6 GB	8k	Estimated	$2,499	Q5_K_M is the current best practical quantization. 16.6 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 3.6 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
27	Mac Mini M4 16GB	94	3bit	16.6 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 3bit · 16.6 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	4.1 GB	15k	Estimated	$499	3bit is the current best practical quantization. 16.6 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 4.1 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
28	MacBook Air M4 16GB 13-inch	94	3bit	16.6 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 3bit · 16.6 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	4.1 GB	15k	Estimated	$1,099	3bit is the current best practical quantization. 16.6 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 4.1 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
29	MacBook Air M4 16GB 15-inch	94	3bit	16.6 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 3bit · 16.6 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	4.1 GB	15k	Estimated	$1,299	3bit is the current best practical quantization. 16.6 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 4.1 GB headroom remains at this quantization.

Qwen3.6-27B — ranking first, raw rows below

Start with the ranked Mac table above. Use the rest of this page to inspect raw Apple Silicon coverage and model metadata.

Quantizations observed: Q4_K - Medium

1Benchmark rows

1Chip tiers covered

16.6Fastest avg tok/s (M4 Max (128 GB))

29 GBMinimum RAM observed

Quick take

Fastest published result is 16.6 tok/s on M4 Max (128 GB) at Q4_K - Medium. Smallest published fit is 29.0 GB on M4 Max (128 GB). Published runtimes include Ollama. Start with Rankings for the decision, then use the raw rows below to audit the evidence.

Based on 1 external benchmark; no lab runs yet.

Published runtimes: Ollama.

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Catalog record

27BTotal params

DenseActive params

262,144Context window

2026-04-22Release date

What this model is, and what Apple Silicon users are actually seeing

Official model cards tell you what the model is for and which software stacks it targets. Field reality below shows how much Apple Silicon evidence we have so far.

Official brief

Agentic Coding: the model now handles frontend workflows and repository-level reasoning with greater fluency and precision.

Official source · Raw model card

agentscodingreasoningvisual-understanding

Runtime support mentioned

vLLMSGLangTransformersKTransformers

Official specs

Type: Causal Language Model with Vision Encoder.
Scale: 27B.
Context: 262,144 natively and extensible up to 1,010,000 tokens.
Total parameters: 27B.
Max input: 262,144 natively and extensible up to 1,010,000 tokens.

Official takeaways

Agentic Coding: the model now handles frontend workflows and repository-level reasoning with greater fluency and precision.
Thinking Preservation: we've introduced a new option to retain reasoning context from historical messages, streamlining iterative development and reducing overhead.

Official model cards describe intent, capabilities, and supported stacks. They do not prove Apple Silicon speed by themselves.

Field reality on Apple Silicon

Qwen3.6-27B: 28 Apple Silicon field reports; best reported generation ~85.5 tok/s; best reported prompt processing ~580.7 tok/s; reported RAM use ~15.8-41GB; seen on M4 MAX 64GB, MacBook Pro M5 MAX 128GB, MacBook Pro M4 MAX 128GB; via oMLX, MTPLX, MLX.

1Benchmark rows

28Field reports

9Practitioner signals

Sparse BenchmarksEvidence status

What practitioners keep saying

The oMLX context table reports Qwen3.6-27B 4bit on an M1 Max 24-core 32GB Mac at 1024 tokens context with 67.4 tok/s prompt processing, 15.5 tok/s generation, 15.201s TTFT, and peak memory at 15.8GB.
The page also includes separate batching results, but single-stream latency is the relevant caution for local coding-agent recommendations.
This row broadens lower-memory Max-tier fit evidence, but any ranking change still needs first-party reproduction with clean memory-pressure and prompt-shape telemetry.

Apple Silicon field sources

Youssofal Hugging Face model cards
2026-05-05 · MacBook Pro M5 Max 128GB · MTPLX
MTPLX reports a roughly 2.24x Qwen3.6-27B speed lane on M5 Max 128GB using native MTP heads, but the claim is fanmax, prompt-shape, and runtime specific.
oMLX community benchmarks
2026-05-05 · M4 Max 40-core GPU, 64GB unified memory · oMLX
A same-day oMLX sweep shows Qwen3.6-27B-oQ4 on M4 Max 64GB with strong short-context speed but a steep drop by 16k context, making it a useful reproduction target for mid-memory Max-tier Macs.
oMLX community benchmarks
2026-05-05 · M4 Max 40-core GPU, 128GB unified memory · oMLX
A same-day oMLX context sweep shows exact Qwen3.6-27B-oQ4e running from 1k through 64k context on an M4 Max 40-core 128GB setup, giving a cleaner high-memory Max-tier dense-model signal than derivative-only rows.
oMLX community benchmarks
2026-05-05 · M1 Max 24-core GPU, 32GB unified memory · oMLX
A same-day oMLX row shows Qwen3.6-27B fitting on an M1 Max 32GB setup at 4-bit, but the low prompt-processing rate and long TTFT make it a cautious dense-model path for older 32GB Macs.
oMLX community benchmarks
2026-05-04 · MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB · oMLX
A same-day oMLX context sweep shows a Qwen3.6-27B derivative running across 1k to 32k context on an M4 Max 128GB MacBook Pro, adding a high-memory Max-tier dense-model signal while preserving first-party reproduction gates.

4 more Apple Silicon field sources tracked in the research queue.

Runtime mentions in the field

LM StudioMLXoMLX

Hardware mentioned in reports

24GB32GB48GB64GB128GBM1 MaxM4M4 Pro

What would improve confidence

Expand Cross Chip Benchmark Coverage
Reproduce Field Performance Signal
Upgrade To First Party Measurement

Current published coverage

Published chip coverage includes M4 Max (128 GB). Fastest published row is 16.6 tok/s on M4 Max (128 GB) at Q4_K - Medium. Lowest published RAM requirement is 29.0 GB on M4 Max (128 GB).

M4 Max (128 GB)

Related Qwen3.6-27B models with published pages: Qwen3.6-35B-A3B

Raw benchmark rows for Qwen3.6-27B

Rows stay below the ranking because this page is answer-first. Use them to inspect exact chips, quantizations, runtimes, and sources.

Chip	Quant	RAM req.	Context	Avg tok/s	Prompt tok/s	Runtime	Source
M4 Max (128 GB)	Q4_K - Medium	29.0 GB	—	16.6 tok/s	114.5 tok/s	Ollama	ref

Best Macs for Qwen3.6-27B

Ordered by fastest published tok/s on the chip family in each Mac. Click through for the full machine page.

MacBook Pro M4 Max 36GB 14-inch — 16.6 tok/s MacBook Pro M4 Max 48GB 14-inch — 16.6 tok/s MacBook Pro M4 Max 36GB 16-inch — 16.6 tok/s MacBook Pro M4 Max 48GB 16-inch — 16.6 tok/s MacBook Pro M4 Max 64GB 16-inch — 16.6 tok/s MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB 16-inch — 16.6 tok/s

Chips with published results for Qwen3.6-27B

M4 Max (128 GB)

Data

benchmarks.json — full dataset · models.json — model summaries · benchmarks.csv — CSV export

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