MODEL · ALIBABA · 30.5B TOTAL / 3.3B ACTIVE
Qwen3-Coder-30B-A3B
The community daily-driver coding MoE for 24 GB-class hardware — purpose-trained for agentic coding + browser-use. Delivers 30B-dense quality at 3B-dense throughput.
License: Apache 2.0 · Context: 262K native, extendable to 1M · Released: July 2025
The decision in five lines
- The call
- Buy — for coding
- Best for
- coding · agents
- Runs on
- 16 hardware picks fit (cheapest: Minisforum UM890 Pro · $463)
- Watch out
- General chat or docs — it's coding-specialized and the tone/conversation quality lags the generalist Qwen 3.5 35B-A3B at the same active-param budget.
- Evidence
- Estimated
- 30.5B total
- PARAMETERS
- MOE
- TYPE
- 262K
- CONTEXT
- ~17 GB
- VRAM AT Q4
Where we recommend this
Every tier slot in the planner where this model is a top or alternate pick. Pulled live from planner.js — when the planner refreshes, this table stays current.
The call
The community daily-driver coding MoE for 24 GB-class hardware — purpose-trained for agentic coding + browser-use. Delivers 30B-dense quality at 3B-dense throughput.
When not to use: General chat or docs — it's coding-specialized and the tone/conversation quality lags the generalist Qwen 3.5 35B-A3B at the same active-param budget.
Runner notes
Ollama tag `qwen3-coder:30b-a3b-q4_K_M`. Never emits `<think>` blocks — don't pass `enable_thinking=True`. MoE HIP kernel caveat applies on AMD ROCm.
Hardware that fits
Every hardware pick whose memory fits this model at the quant we recommend. Sorted cheapest-first — the top row is your best-value fit. Click through for the full buyer’s guide.
- Minisforum UM890 ProGood · 1.3× 32 GB DDR5 (shared) · $463–$580 all-in
- AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTXGood · 1.3× 24 GB · $760 used / ~$1,500 new
- NVIDIA RTX 3090 (used, single)Good · 1.3× 24 GB · $950–$1,200
- MacBook Air M5 24 GBRequires tweak · 1.2× 24 GB unified · $1,299–$1,699
- Mac Mini M4 Pro 24 GBRequires tweak · 1.2× 24 GB unified · $1,399
- Dual RTX 3090 (used)Perfect · 2.6× 48 GB · $1,800–$2,500 all-in
- Framework Desktop (Ryzen AI Max+ 395)Perfect · 4.6× 128 GB unified · $1,999–$2,851
- NVIDIA RTX 4090Good · 1.3× 24 GB · $2,200–$2,800
- M5 Pro MacBook Pro 48 GBPerfect · 1.7× 48 GB unified · $2,599–$3,099
- NVIDIA RTX 5090Perfect · 1.7× 32 GB · $2,910–$4,300
- Mac Studio M4 Max 64 GBPerfect · 2.3× 64 GB unified · $3,199
- NVIDIA RTX A6000 (48 GB, used)Perfect · 2.6× 48 GB ECC · $3,500–$4,500
- Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96 GBPerfect · 3.5× 96 GB unified · $3,999
- M5 Max MacBook Pro 64 GBPerfect · 2.3× 64 GB unified · $4,499
- NVIDIA DGX SparkPerfect · 4.6× 128 GB unified · $4,699
- Dual RTX 5090Perfect · 3.5× 64 GB (2×32) · $8,500–$10,500
Next step
Find-by-model — see what hardware runs this→