Falcon3 7B on Apple M3 Max · 36GB

✅ Runs comfortably — Falcon3 7B @ Q8_0
Falcon3 7B 7B at Q8_0 needs ~8.8 GB (weights 7.4 GB + KV 896 MB + overhead 512 MB @ 8K ctx) of your 21.1 GB usable (of 36.0 GB unified memory) — plenty of headroom. Expect ~20–35 tok/s (fast).
context @ Q8_0: comfortable to 32K
quantneedsspeed
✓ Q8_08.8 GB~20–35 tok/s (fast)
✓ Q6_K7.1 GB~25–45 tok/s (fast)
✓ Q5_K_M6.3 GB~30–50 tok/s (fast)
✓ Q4_K_M5.6 GB~35–55 tok/s (fast)
$runlocal install falcon3:7b
runlocal verdict card
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Falcon3 7B: Runs comfortably
for your own README — links back here

Same model, other machines: Apple M1 · Apple M1 Pro · Apple M2 · Apple M3 Pro · Apple M2 Pro · Apple M4 Pro

Also runs on a Apple M3 Max: Qwen3 · DeepSeek-R1 (distill) · Qwen2.5 · Gemma 4 · Gemma 3

Best models for a Apple M3 Max · 36GB →

Architecturally similar

These share Falcon3 7B's KV-cache geometry — they size memory the same way, so here's how they fit on a Apple M3 Max · 36GB too:

modelsharesverdict here
Gemma 2 4kv/256hd ✅ Runs (tight)

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