AI station / mini-PC
Mac mini (M4, 16 GB) — Local LLM Performance
Mac mini (M4, 16 GB) is a Mini PC running macOS, with 16 GB unified memory.
Specifications
- Memory for models
- 16 GB unified
- Memory bandwidth
- 120 GB/s
- Memory upgradeable
- No — soldered, decided at purchase
- Chip
- Apple M4
- Architecture
- ARM, 3nm TSMC
- Form factor
- Mini PC
- Operating system
- macOS
- Released
- 2024
- Llama 3.1 8B Q4_K_M
- 7.7–16 tok/s
- Price
- $599 (checked 2026-07-06)
Worth knowing before you buy
- The cheapest credible always-on local-AI box, but 16 GB caps it at small and mid-size models.
- Memory is soldered; upgrading means replacing the machine.
Models on the Mac mini M4 16 GB
- Yi 1.5 FamilyYes, but it is tight
- VibeThinkerYes — comfortably
- Aya 3B (Tiny Aya)Yes — comfortably
- StarCoder 2Yes
- SmolLM3Yes — comfortably
- SmolLM2Yes — comfortably
- Qwen3-CoderYes, but it is tight
- Qwen3.8Yes
- Qwen 3.6Yes
- Qwen 3.5Yes
- Qwen 3Yes, but it is tight
- Qwen 2.5 VLYes
- Qwen 2.5 FamilyYes, but it is tight
- Phi-4 MiniYes — comfortably
- Phi-4 FamilyYes, but it is tight
- Phi 3.5 FamilyYes — comfortably
- OLMo 2Yes, but it is tight
- Mistral Small 3.1Yes
- Mistral Small 3.2Yes
- Mistral FamilyYes, but it is tight
- MinistralYes
- Ministral 3Yes
- MiniCPM-VYes
- Magistral SmallYes
- Llama 3.2 VisionYes
- Llama 3.2 FamilyYes
- Llama 3.1 FamilyYes
- LFM2.5Yes
- InternLM 3Yes
- IBM Granite 4.2Yes
- IBM Granite 4.1Yes
- Granite 3.0Yes
- GPT-OSSYes
- GLM-5 / GLM-5.1No
- GLM-4.7 / GLM-Z1Yes, but it is tight
- Gemma 4Yes, but it is tight
- Gemma 3nYes
- Gemma 3Yes, but it is tight
- Gemma 2 FamilyYes
- Falcon 3Yes
- EXAONE 3.5Yes
- DevstralYes
- DeepSeek R1Yes
- DeepSeek-OCRYes — comfortably
- Cosmos 3Yes, but it is tight
- Cogito v1Yes, but it is tight
- CodestralYes
- Bonsai 27BYes — comfortably
- BitNet b1.58Yes — comfortably
- Aya ExpanseYes