Written by Jakub Rusinowski · Last updated February 4, 2025
Yes — comfortably
Yes, comfortably — Phi-4 Mini (3.8B) at Q8_0 needs about 5.9 GB of the 12 GB usable on MacBook Air (M4, 16 GB), leaving ~6.1 GB spare and running at ~13.8 tok/s (estimated), with room for about 32,768 tokens of context.
Confidence: high · Recommended quantization: Q8_0 · Estimated speed: ~13.8 tok/s
| Usable memory for models | 12 GB |
| Memory bandwidth | 120 GB/s |
| Form factor | Laptop |
| Operating system | macOS |
| Memory upgradeable | No — soldered |
| Quant | Memory needed | Fits 12 GB? | Max context | Est. speed | Download |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| F16 | 9.5 GB | ✓ Yes | 16K | ~7.9 tok/s | 7.6 GB |
| Q8_0 | 5.9 GB | ✓ Yes | 32K | ~13.8 tok/s | 4 GB |
| Q6_K | 5 GB | ✓ Yes | 32K | ~17.1 tok/s | 3.1 GB |
| Q5_K_M | 4.6 GB | ✓ Yes | 32K | ~19.2 tok/s | 2.7 GB |
| Q4_K_M | 4.2 GB | ✓ Yes | 64K | ~21.7 tok/s | 2.3 GB |
| Q3_K_M | 3.5 GB | ✓ Yes | 64K | ~27.9 tok/s | 1.6 GB |
| Q2_K | 3.1 GB | ✓ Yes | 64K | ~33.2 tok/s | 1.2 GB |
Ollama or LM Studio (Metal) — MLX for the fastest Apple-native throughput
Yes, comfortably — Phi-4 Mini (3.8B) at Q8_0 needs about 5.9 GB of the 12 GB usable on MacBook Air (M4, 16 GB), leaving ~6.1 GB spare and running at ~13.8 tok/s (estimated), with room for about 32,768 tokens of context.
Q8_0 — it needs about 5.9 GB of the 12 GB available, downloads as roughly 4 GB, and runs at an estimated 13.8 tokens/sec with up to 32K of context.
Nothing binding — the model fits with headroom and generates at a usable speed on this hardware.
Ollama or LM Studio (Metal) — MLX for the fastest Apple-native throughput
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