Alibaba
Qwen3 30B-A3B
Mixture-of-Experts model with 30 B total parameters but only 3 B active per token. Runs at the speed of a 3 B model, with the knowledge of a 30 B. Sweet spot for 24 GB cards.
About This Model
Qwen3 30B-A3B is the model that finally makes MoE practical for consumer hardware. Total memory footprint sits at 20 GB for Q4 — fits on a 24 GB RTX 3090/4090 — but inference speed lands around what you would expect from a 3 B model because only ~3.3 B parameters activate per token. The trade-off: if your VRAM is smaller than 20 GB you cannot run it at all, since all expert weights must be loaded simultaneously.
Check Your Hardware
See which quantizations of Qwen3 30B-A3B your hardware can run.
Quantization Options
| Quantization | Bits | File Size | VRAM Needed | RAM Needed | Quality |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Q4_K_M | 4.5 | 18 GB | 20 GB | 24 GB | 85% |
| Q8_0 | 8 | 32 GB | 36 GB | 40 GB | 98% |
Context window & KV cache
Adds 1.50 GB to VRAMLong chats and RAG inputs cost real memory. Drag to see how 32K vs 128K context shifts your grade.
Model native max: 32K tokens. KV-cache estimate is approximate (±30 %); real usage depends on attention layout.
How to run Qwen3 30B-A3B
Pick a runtime — copy & paste. Commands are pre-filled with this model’s repo.
GUI. Browse → download → chat. MLX on Apple Silicon.
LM Studio home →- 1
Open LM Studio
Go to the 🔍 Search tab.
- 2
Search for
bartowski/Qwen3-30B-A3B-Instruct-GGUF - 3
Download
Pick the Q4_K_M quant — best balance of size vs. quality.
- 4
Chat
Hit ▶ Load Model and start chatting. Toggle 'Local Server' to expose an OpenAI-compatible API on :1234.
Community benchmarks
Real tokens/sec reports from people running Qwen3 30B-A3B on actual hardware.
No community runs yet for this model. Be the first to submit your numbers.
See It In Action
Real model outputs generated via RunThisModel.com — watch responses stream in real time.
Outputs generated by real AI models via RunThisModel.com. Generation speed shown is from cloud inference. Local speeds vary by hardware — check your device.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much VRAM do I need to run Qwen3 30B-A3B?
Qwen3 30B-A3B requires 20GB VRAM minimum with Q4_K_M quantization. For full precision, you need 36GB VRAM.
What is the best quantization for Qwen3 30B-A3B?
Q4_K_M offers the best balance of quality and VRAM usage. Q8_0 is near-lossless if you have enough VRAM.