---
title: "Discussion on \"[Video] Running Qwen 3.8 27B Ternary Bonsai 2 on my 16GB Mac\" | Hashnode"
description: "Discussion on \"[Video] Running Qwen 3.8 27B Ternary Bonsai 2 on my 16GB Mac\". This is a brief test of a heavily quantized version of Qwen 3.8 27B, fitting in 7GB on disk. Impressive, but not 98% of the original Qwen."
url: "https://hashnode.com/posts/video-running-qwen-3-8-27b-ternary-bonsai-2-on-my-16gb-mac/6ab09e2f4cb6159b7d516836"
---

[Feed](https://hashnode.com/feed) /

Discussion

# [\[Video\] Running Qwen 3.8 27B Ternary Bonsai 2 on my 16GB Mac](https://dragosroua.hashnode.dev/video-running-qwen-3-8-27b-ternary-bonsai-2-on-my-16gb-mac?utm_source=hashnode&utm_medium=feed)

This is a brief test of a heavily quantized version of Qwen 3.8 27B, fitting in 7GB on disk. Impressive, but not 98% of the original Qwen.

Sep 21 · 2 min read · dragosroua.hashnode.dev  
Read the article

-   [#qwen](https://hashnode.com/tag/qwen)
-   [#localai](https://hashnode.com/tag/localai)
-   [#ai](https://hashnode.com/tag/ai)
-   [#ai-tools](https://hashnode.com/tag/ai-tools)

## Written by

[Dragos Roua](https://hashnode.com/@dragosroua)

@dragosroua · Lisbon, Portugal

  
[View profile](https://hashnode.com/@dragosroua)

I code since before it was vibey

I code since before it was vibey

## Responses 2

Markdown supported · ⌘↵ to post

[Mihai\_LeanZero](https://hashnode.com/@mihaileanzero)

[Sep 21](https://hashnode.com/posts/video-running-qwen-3-8-27b-ternary-bonsai-2-on-my-16gb-mac/6ab09e2f4cb6159b7d516836/comment/6ab0a88bb1be516af34b7e80)

Good that you're skeptical of the 98%-retention number. Those figures are almost always benchmark averages weighted toward knowledge/reasoning tests like MMLU, which measure something pretty different from a from-scratch generate-and-iterate task like the Three.js build. A model can score close to the original on one axis and still fail completely on the other, which is closer to what you actually hit over those three hours than a straight 2% quality gap would predict.

[Dragos Roua](https://hashnode.com/@dragosroua)

[Sep 21](https://hashnode.com/posts/video-running-qwen-3-8-27b-ternary-bonsai-2-on-my-16gb-mac/6ab09e2f4cb6159b7d516836/comment/6ab0a88bb1be516af34b7e80#reply-6ab0a9e906142ad8b2a099a7)

Yeah, I was pretty excited in the beginning, but after spending 3-4 hours on that Three.js generation task, I stepped back a little. Still, impressive.