Question 1

Can MacBook Air M3 24GB run Qwen3.5 397B A17B?

Accepted Answer

No, Qwen3.5 397B A17B requires more memory than MacBook Air M3 24GB provides.

Question 2

How much VRAM does Qwen3.5 397B A17B need?

Accepted Answer

Qwen3.5 397B A17B (397B parameters) requires approximately 308.0 GB of memory with Q4_K_M quantization.

Question 3

What is the best quantization for Qwen3.5 397B A17B?

Accepted Answer

The recommended quantization for Qwen3.5 397B A17B is Q4_K_M, which balances quality and memory efficiency.

Workload	Grade	Fit	Decode	TTFT	Context
Agentic Coding	F	Too heavy	2.0 tok/s	140800 ms	4K
Chat	F	Too heavy	2.0 tok/s	52800 ms	4K
Coding	F	Too heavy	2.0 tok/s	96800 ms	4K
RAG	F	Too heavy	2.0 tok/s	176000 ms	4K
Reasoning	F	Too heavy	2.0 tok/s	114400 ms	4K

Quant	Bits	VRAM	Quality	Fit
Q2_K	2	154.8 GB	Low	F0
Q3_K_S	3	194.5 GB	Low	F0
NVFP4	4

Can MacBook Air M3 24GB run Qwen3.5 397B A17B?

Memory breakdown