Question 1

Can MacBook Air M3 24GB run Qwen2.5 1.5B Instruct?

Accepted Answer

Yes, MacBook Air M3 24GB can run Qwen2.5 1.5B Instruct with a C grade (Runs well). Expected decode speed: 65.0 tok/s.

Question 2

How much VRAM does Qwen2.5 1.5B Instruct need?

Accepted Answer

Qwen2.5 1.5B Instruct (1.5B parameters) requires approximately 5.5 GB of memory with Q4_K_M quantization.

Question 3

What is the best quantization for Qwen2.5 1.5B Instruct?

Accepted Answer

The recommended quantization for Qwen2.5 1.5B Instruct is Q4_K_M, which balances quality and memory efficiency.

Workload	Grade	Fit	Decode	TTFT	Context
Agentic Coding	C	Runs well	68.0 tok/s	4141 ms	100K
Chat	C	Runs well	68.0 tok/s	1553 ms	25K
Coding	C	Runs well	65.0 tok/s	2978 ms	50K
RAG	C	Runs well	68.0 tok/s	5176 ms	100K
Reasoning	C	Runs well	68.0 tok/s	3365 ms	50K

Quant	Bits	VRAM	Quality	Fit
Q2_K	2	0.6 GB	Low	D30
Q3_K_S	3	0.7 GB	Low	D30
NVFP4	4

Can MacBook Air M3 24GB run Qwen2.5 1.5B Instruct?

Memory breakdown