Can the Apple M2 Ultra (192GB) run Phi-3.5 Mini 3.8B?
- FP16
- Q8_0
- Q6_K
- Q5_K_M
- Q4_K_M
- Q3_K_M
- Q2_K
Yes. The Apple M2 Ultra (192GB) can run Phi-3.5 Mini 3.8B fully in unified memory at FP16 (full quality), using about 11.5 GB of the 144 GB available, at roughly 63 tokens/second.
Run it with Ollama
With Ollama installed, one command downloads and starts Phi-3.5 Mini 3.8B:
ollama run phi3.5:3.8bOllama's default download is Q4_K_M (about 6.1 GB here). You have room for FP16, which is full quality: pick that GGUF in LM Studio or from Hugging Face.
Run it in the cloud
No Apple M2 Ultra (192GB)? Run Phi-3.5 Mini 3.8B 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 144 GB the Apple M2 Ultra (192GB) can use. macOS lets the GPU use about 144 GB of the 192 GB unified memory by default.
| Quant | Quality | Memory | Fits? | Speed | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FP16 | Full quality | 11.5 GB | Fits | ~63 tok/s | |
| Q8_0 | Near-lossless | 7.9 GB | Fits | ~118 tok/s | |
| Q6_K | Excellent | 7 GB | Fits | ~153 tok/s | |
| Q5_K_M | Very good | 6.5 GB | Fits | ~177 tok/s | |
| Q4_K_M | Good, most popular | 6.1 GB | Fits | ~207 tok/s | |
| Q3_K_M | Noticeably degraded | 5.7 GB | Fits | ~257 tok/s | |
| Q2_K | Heavily degraded | 5.3 GB | Fits | ~335 tok/s |
GPUs that run Phi-3.5 Mini 3.8B comfortably
Models that run well on the Apple M2 Ultra (192GB)
Frequently asked questions
Can Apple M2 Ultra (192GB) run Phi-3.5 Mini 3.8B?
Yes. The Apple M2 Ultra (192GB) can run Phi-3.5 Mini 3.8B fully in unified memory at FP16 (full quality), using about 11.5 GB of the 144 GB available, at roughly 63 tokens/second.
How much VRAM does Phi-3.5 Mini 3.8B need?
About 6.1 GB at Q4_K_M with 8,192 tokens of context, and about 11.5 GB at full FP16 precision.
How fast is Phi-3.5 Mini 3.8B on the Apple M2 Ultra (192GB)?
Roughly 63 tokens per second at FP16, estimated from the Apple M2 Ultra (192GB)'s 800 GB/s memory bandwidth.