Coding with AI / MacBook Air M4
MacBook Air M4
Memory: 16 / 24 / 32 GB.
Memory bandwidth: 120 GB/s.
Generation speed is bound by the chip's bandwidth; memory decides which models fit.
fits, but slowQwen3.6-35B-A3B51.5%* on Terminal-Bench 2~18 tok/s · estimated How to run
Qwen3.6-35B-A3B ceiling
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Score: 51.5% (Terminal-Bench 2),
source
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Speed: 18 tok/s (estimate: bandwidth-bound approximation)
- Conditions: engine llama.cpp, quant Q4_K_M, context 128
- Min memory: 24 GB
- Command:
llama-server -m qwen3.6-35b-a3b-Q4_K_M.gguf
Every number above is either a measurement with a source or a labeled estimate with a method.
Unlabeled estimates do not exist on this site.
Ceiling timeline
The strongest model fitting MacBook Air M4 (32 GB) at its release date, by SWE-bench Verified.
- 2025-08-05 gpt-oss-20b 60.7%
- 2025-12-09 Devstral Small 2 68%
- 2026-04-01 Qwen3.6-35B-A3B 73.4%