Known-issues sheets for local language models Rev 0.1.0 · reviewed every 7 days

Model datasheet · Qwen3

Qwen3 32B

The dense flagship under 35B — the only sub-35B model with an independent Aider coding score. Trades the 30B-A3B MoE's speed for steadier quality and more graceful quantization; expect <10 tok/s on unified memory.

Vendor
Alibaba
Architecture
Dense · 32.8B
Context
32,768 tokens
License
Apache-2.0
Released
2025-04-29
Vision
No

→ GGUF (llama.cpp / LM Studio / Ollama) → MLX (Apple Silicon)

§1 Characteristics by quantization band

Q2–Q3 — 2–3 bit

16GB weights · e.g. Q3_K_M + KV: 2GB at 8K · 8GB at 32K · 8GB at 128K

— Not yet rated · contributions welcome —

Q4–Q5 — 4–5 bit

20GB weights · e.g. Q4_K_M , Q5_K_M , mlx-4bit + KV: 2GB at 8K · 8GB at 32K · 8GB at 128K
Math & reasoning 7/10
data checked Aug 2026
  • quant-degradation-community — KLD/perplexity delta vs bf16 @ Q4_K_M · aggregated · 2026-08-30

    Editorial derivation: large dense models quantize gracefully; small loss at 4-bit.

Coding 7/10
data checked Aug 2026
  • quant-degradation-community — KLD/perplexity delta vs bf16 @ Q4_K_M · aggregated · 2026-08-30

    Editorial derivation: small loss at 4-bit.

Tool calling / agentic 6/10
data checked Aug 2026
  • quant-degradation-community — community consensus @ Q4_K_M · aggregated · 2026-08-30

    Editorial derivation: occasional argument-format slips at 4-bit.

Instruction following 7/10
data checked Aug 2026
  • quant-degradation-community — community consensus @ Q4_K_M · aggregated · 2026-08-30

    Editorial derivation: IF is not quant-sensitive.

Q6–Q8 — 6–8 bit

27GB weights · e.g. Q6_K + KV: 2GB at 8K · 8GB at 32K · 8GB at 128K

— Not yet rated · contributions welcome —

FP16 — full precision (fp16/bf16)

66GB weights · e.g. bf16 + KV: 2GB at 8K · 8GB at 32K · 8GB at 128K
Math & reasoning 8/10
data checked Aug 2026
Coding 7/10
data checked Aug 2026
Tool calling / agentic 7/10
data checked Aug 2026
Instruction following 7/10
data checked Aug 2026
Factuality 5/10
data checked Aug 2026
Long context 7/10
data checked Aug 2026

§2 Known issues & what fixes them

ISSUE-01 mild Q2–Q3 / Q4–Q5 / Q6–Q8 / FP16 · instruction-following

Thinking mode burns thousands of tokens per answer — painful at the <10 tok/s this dense 32B manages on consumer hardware, especially in agent loops.

Fix
Prompt technique [strong]

Set enable_thinking=False or append /no_think for tasks that don't need deep reasoning; consider Qwen3-30B-A3B for ~5× the speed at similar quality.

Evidence · 2 sources · community-consensus
ISSUE-02 mild Q2–Q3 / Q4–Q5 / Q6–Q8 / FP16 · instruction-following

Endless repetition under greedy decoding — the model card warns against it explicitly.

Fix
Prompt technique [strong]

Card samplers (0.6/0.95/20 thinking; 0.7/0.8/20 non-thinking); presence_penalty up to 1.5.

Evidence · 2 sources · community-consensus