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 96 GB usable on MacBook Pro 16" (M5 Max, 128 GB), leaving ~90.1 GB spare and running at ~60.3 tok/s (estimated), with room for about 65,536 tokens of context.
Confidence: high · Recommended quantization: Q8_0 · Estimated speed: ~60.3 tok/s
| Usable memory for models | 96 GB |
| Memory bandwidth | 614 GB/s |
| Form factor | Laptop |
| Operating system | macOS |
| Memory upgradeable | No — soldered |
| Quant | Memory needed | Fits 96 GB? | Max context | Est. speed | Download |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| F16 | 9.5 GB | ✓ Yes | 64K | ~36.8 tok/s | 7.6 GB |
| Q8_0 | 5.9 GB | ✓ Yes | 64K | ~60.3 tok/s | 4 GB |
| Q6_K | 5 GB | ✓ Yes | 64K | ~72.2 tok/s | 3.1 GB |
| Q5_K_M | 4.6 GB | ✓ Yes | 64K | ~79.4 tok/s | 2.7 GB |
| Q4_K_M | 4.2 GB | ✓ Yes | 64K | ~87.6 tok/s | 2.3 GB |
| Q3_K_M | 3.5 GB | ✓ Yes | 64K | ~106.3 tok/s | 1.6 GB |
| Q2_K | 3.1 GB | ✓ Yes | 64K | ~120.4 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 96 GB usable on MacBook Pro 16" (M5 Max, 128 GB), leaving ~90.1 GB spare and running at ~60.3 tok/s (estimated), with room for about 65,536 tokens of context.
Q8_0 — it needs about 5.9 GB of the 96 GB available, downloads as roughly 4 GB, and runs at an estimated 60.3 tokens/sec with up to 64K 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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