Apple64 GB VRAM400 GB/s$0/hr

Falcon 3 10B Instruct on Mac M3 Max (64GB): Does It Fit, How Fast, What It Costs

Falcon 3 10B Instruct at FP16 needs 20.0 GB for its weights and 30.7 GB in total at 8K context with 8 concurrent users. That means it fits on a single Mac M3 Max (64GB). Every figure is computed by tokcalc's open-source capacity model.

Fits?
Yes, 1 GPU
30.7 GB needed / 64 GB available
Decode speed
13.00
tok/s per stream
Aggregate
156.0
tok/s @ 8 concurrent
Cost / 1M tokens
—
1× Mac M3 Max (64GB) · quote required
What changes as you add Mac M3 Max (64GB)s
Tensor-parallel degree vs VRAM, throughput, and cost. Cost scales linearly with GPU count; decode throughput scales near-linearly too, so cost per token stays roughly flat.
GPUsTotal VRAMVRAM neededDecode tok/sAggregate tok/sTTFTCost / 1M tokFits?
1× Mac64 GB30.7 GB13.00156.023.51 s—✓
2× Mac128 GB30.7 GB22.10530.411.78 s—✓
4× Mac256 GB30.7 GB44.2021225.90 s—✓
8× Mac512 GB30.7 GB88.4084862.97 s—✓
Concurrency vs context length
On 1× Mac M3 Max (64GB) at FP16. KV cache scales linearly with context, so this is the number of users your GPUs can actually serve.
ContextConcurrent usersKV per requestFits?
4K65687.2 MB✓ fits
8K321.34 GB✓ fits
33K85.37 GB✓ fits
66K410.74 GB✓ fits
131K221.47 GB✓ fits
Other GPUs that run Falcon 3 10B Instruct
Same workload, same quantization — ranked by value (tokens per dollar-hour).
GPUGPUsAggregate tok/sCost / 1M tok
RTX 5090 32GB1×698.9$0.1987
AMD MI300X 192GB1×2067$0.3360
V100 SXM2 32GB1×351.0$0.3957
A100 40GB SXM41×604.5$0.4136
AMD MI325X 288GB1×2340$0.4155
A100 80GB SXM41×780.0$0.4274
Frequently asked questions

Can Falcon 3 10B Instruct run on Mac M3 Max (64GB)?

Yes. Falcon 3 10B Instruct at FP16 needs 30.7 GB including the KV cache, and Mac M3 Max (64GB) has 64 GB — so it fits on a single GPU.

How fast is Falcon 3 10B Instruct on Mac M3 Max (64GB)?

13.00 tokens/sec per stream and 156.0 tok/s aggregate with continuous batching at 8 concurrent users. Time to first token is 23.51 s, and inter-token latency is 76.9 ms.

What does Falcon 3 10B Instruct on Mac M3 Max (64GB) cost per million tokens?

— per 1M output tokens at 1× Mac M3 Max (64GB). That is the marginal hardware cost — add idle capacity, ops, and egress for the real figure.

How much VRAM does Falcon 3 10B Instruct need on Mac M3 Max (64GB)?

20.0 GB for the weights at FP16, plus 10.7 GB of KV cache for 8 concurrent requests at 8K context — 30.7 GB total. Every extra concurrent user at long context costs more, so leave headroom.

Is Mac M3 Max (64GB) the right choice for Falcon 3 10B Instruct?

It works. Compare — per 1M tokens against the alternatives below — the cheapest option that fits the same workload is 4× RTX 3080 10GB at $0.0551, and the fastest is 1× Cerebras CS-3 (WSE-3) at 7800 tok/s.

Adjust the workload yourself

Same formulas, your context length, concurrency, and quantisation.

Open in calculator