Can I Run Mistral Small 3.1 on Mac mini (M4 Pro, 64 GB)?

Written by Jakub Rusinowski · Last updated March 17, 2025

Yes — comfortably

Yes, comfortably — Mistral Small 3.1 24B at Q8_0 needs about 27.2 GB of the 48 GB usable on Mac mini (M4 Pro, 64 GB), leaving ~20.8 GB spare and running at ~5.7 tok/s (estimated), with room for about 65,536 tokens of context.

Confidence: high · Recommended quantization: Q8_0 · Estimated speed: ~5.7 tok/s

Mac mini (M4 Pro, 64 GB) — what it gives a model

Usable memory for models48 GB
Memory bandwidth273 GB/s
Form factorMini PC
Operating systemmacOS
Memory upgradeableNo — soldered

Mistral Small 3.1 on Mac mini (M4 Pro, 64 GB): memory by quantization

QuantMemory neededFits 48 GB?Max contextEst. speedDownload
F1649.3 GB✗ No47.2 GB
Q8_027.2 GB✓ Yes64K~5.7 tok/s25.1 GB
Q6_K21.5 GB✓ Yes64K~7.3 tok/s19.4 GB
Q5_K_M18.9 GB✓ Yes64K~8.4 tok/s16.7 GB
Q4_K_M16.4 GB✓ Yes64K~9.7 tok/s14.2 GB
Q3_K_M12.2 GB✓ Yes64K~13.4 tok/s10.1 GB
Q2_K9.9 GB✓ Yes64K~16.9 tok/s7.8 GB

What to watch out for

Mac mini M4 Pro 64 GB limitations

Recommended setup

Ollama or LM Studio (Metal) — MLX for the fastest Apple-native throughput

How these numbers are calculated

FAQ

Can I run Mistral Small 3.1 on Mac mini (M4 Pro, 64 GB)?

Yes, comfortably — Mistral Small 3.1 24B at Q8_0 needs about 27.2 GB of the 48 GB usable on Mac mini (M4 Pro, 64 GB), leaving ~20.8 GB spare and running at ~5.7 tok/s (estimated), with room for about 65,536 tokens of context.

Which quantization of Mistral Small 3.1 should I use on Mac mini (M4 Pro, 64 GB)?

Q8_0 — it needs about 27.2 GB of the 48 GB available, downloads as roughly 25.1 GB, and runs at an estimated 5.7 tokens/sec with up to 64K of context.

What limits Mistral Small 3.1 on Mac mini (M4 Pro, 64 GB)?

Nothing binding — the model fits with headroom and generates at a usable speed on this hardware.

Which runtime should I use?

Ollama or LM Studio (Metal) — MLX for the fastest Apple-native throughput

Other Computers

Other Models on Mac mini (M4 Pro, 64 GB)

Mistral Small 3.1 on GPUs

What This Model Is Good At

Model & Tools

← Can I Run It? | Mistral Small 3.1 model page | Check your hardware