MiniMax M2.5 230B — VRAM, Speed & Local Setup

Written by Jakub Rusinowski · Last updated February 15, 2026

Model library → MiniMax M2.5 → MiniMax M2.5 230B

230B MoE model with 80.2% SWE-bench score — surpassing Claude Opus 4.6 on that benchmark at a fraction of the cost ($0.30/$0.56 per 1M tokens vs Claude's $15/$75). Supports 1M token context and multimodal input. Needs ~130 GB at Q4 — accessible via Mac Studio 192 GB or 2-4× A100 cluster.

MiniMax M2.5 230B needs about 140 GB of VRAM at Q4_K_M — quantized weights plus framework overhead, before any KV cache. On Apple Silicon that figure comes out of unified memory.

Specifications

Parameters229.9B (9.8B active)
Context window1,000,000
ArchitectureMixture-of-Experts (256 experts, top-8, 62 layers)
ProviderMiniMax
LicenceModified MIT (attribution required)
Specified atQ4_K_M
System RAM256 GB
Record updated2026-02-15

Licence

Modified MIT — commercial use permitted. Commercial use permitted. No usage restrictions beyond attribution.

VRAM and Speed by Quantization

Modelled on a reference NVIDIA RTX 4090 (24 GB), with no KV cache (this record has no published architecture). Speed figures are ESTIMATES from the memory-bandwidth roofline described on the methodology page, not benchmarks we ran — rows marked measured come from published or reader-submitted runs. VRAM here includes the KV cache, so it reads higher than the headline figure above, which does not.

QuantWeightsVRAM neededEst. speedFit on 24 GB
Q2_K75.6 GB76.4 GB—Won't fit
Q3_K_M98.0 GB98.8 GB—Won't fit
Q4_K_M138.8 GB139.6 GB—Won't fit
Q5_K_M162.9 GB163.7 GB—Won't fit
Q6_K188.5 GB189.3 GB—Won't fit
Q8_0244.3 GB245.1 GB—Won't fit
F16459.8 GB460.6 GB—Won't fit

Want the memory numbers alone, at every quantization level and your own context length? Use the MiniMax M2.5 230B VRAM calculator.

Buy This HardwareApple Mac Studio M2 Ultra — 192 GB VRAM · 60 W board powerDeploy in the Cloud NowRunPod

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Recommended GPU

The cheapest catalogued GPU that runs MiniMax M2.5 230B is the Apple M2 Ultra (192 GB).

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Apple Mac Studio M2 Ultra
192 GB VRAM · 60 W board power
2026 prices are volatile — check the current listing.
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How to Run MiniMax M2.5 230B

Install Ollama, then run:

ollama run minimax-m2-5

Weights on Hugging Face: MiniMaxAI/MiniMax-M2.5.

Best for: software engineering, long context, enterprise, cost efficient.

Can I Run MiniMax M2.5 230B on My GPU?

MiniMax M2.5 230B — Frequently Asked Questions

How much VRAM does MiniMax M2.5 230B need?
About 140 GB at Q4_K_M — quantized weights plus framework overhead, before any KV cache. The cache grows with context length and is added on top; the table above folds it in. Apple Silicon counts unified memory toward the same figure.
Does MiniMax M2.5 230B run on an RTX 4090 (24 GB)?
No. MiniMax M2.5 230B needs about 140 GB at Q4_K_M, more than a single RTX 4090's 24 GB. It needs a larger card, several GPUs, or Apple Silicon with enough unified memory — or it runs with part of the weights offloaded to system RAM, which is much slower.
How do I run MiniMax M2.5 230B locally?
Install Ollama and run `ollama run minimax-m2-5`. That pulls the weights and starts a local OpenAI-compatible endpoint; after the download nothing leaves the machine.

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