Can the Apple M2 Pro (32GB) run Mistral Nemo 12B?
- FP16
- Q8_0
- Q6_K
- Q5_K_M
- Q4_K_M
- Q3_K_M
- Q2_K
Yes. The Apple M2 Pro (32GB) can run Mistral Nemo 12B fully in unified memory at Q8_0 (near-lossless), using about 14.9 GB of the 21.4 GB available, at roughly 9 tokens/second.
Run it with Ollama
With Ollama installed, one command downloads and starts Mistral Nemo 12B:
ollama run mistral-nemo:12bOllama's default download is Q4_K_M (about 9.3 GB here). You have room for Q8_0, which is near-lossless: pick that GGUF in LM Studio or from Hugging Face.
New to this? Step-by-step setup for the Apple M2 Pro (32GB)
Run it in the cloud
No Apple M2 Pro (32GB)? Run Mistral Nemo 12B in the cloud.
Rent a cloud GPU by the hour. No upfront cost, stop any time.
Memory needed by quantization
At 8,192 tokens of context. The black line marks the 21.4 GB the Apple M2 Pro (32GB) can use. macOS lets the GPU use about 21.4 GB of the 32 GB unified memory by default.
| Quant | Quality | Memory | Fits? | Speed | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FP16 | Full quality | 26.3 GB | Too big | — | |
| Q8_0 | Near-lossless | 14.9 GB | Fits | ~9 tok/s | |
| Q6_K | Excellent | 11.9 GB | Fits | ~12 tok/s | |
| Q5_K_M | Very good | 10.6 GB | Fits | ~14 tok/s | |
| Q4_K_M | Good, most popular | 9.3 GB | Fits | ~16 tok/s | |
| Q3_K_M | Noticeably degraded | 7.9 GB | Fits | ~20 tok/s | |
| Q2_K | Heavily degraded | 6.5 GB | Fits | ~26 tok/s |
GPUs that run Mistral Nemo 12B comfortably
Frequently asked questions
Can Apple M2 Pro (32GB) run Mistral Nemo 12B?
Yes. The Apple M2 Pro (32GB) can run Mistral Nemo 12B fully in unified memory at Q8_0 (near-lossless), using about 14.9 GB of the 21.4 GB available, at roughly 9 tokens/second.
How much VRAM does Mistral Nemo 12B need?
About 9.3 GB at Q4_K_M with 8,192 tokens of context, and about 26.3 GB at full FP16 precision.
How fast is Mistral Nemo 12B on the Apple M2 Pro (32GB)?
Roughly 9 tokens per second at Q8_0, estimated from the Apple M2 Pro (32GB)'s 200 GB/s memory bandwidth.