Can the Apple M2 Ultra (192GB) run Phi-4 14B?
- 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-4 14B fully in unified memory at FP16 (full quality), using about 31.7 GB of the 144 GB available, at roughly 16 tokens/second.
Run it with Ollama
With Ollama installed, one command downloads and starts Phi-4 14B:
ollama run phi4:14bOllama's default download is Q4_K_M (about 11.2 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-4 14B 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 | 31.7 GB | Fits | ~16 tok/s | |
| Q8_0 | Near-lossless | 17.9 GB | Fits | ~31 tok/s | |
| Q6_K | Excellent | 14.3 GB | Fits | ~40 tok/s | |
| Q5_K_M | Very good | 12.7 GB | Fits | ~46 tok/s | |
| Q4_K_M | Good, most popular | 11.2 GB | Fits | ~54 tok/s | |
| Q3_K_M | Noticeably degraded | 9.5 GB | Fits | ~67 tok/s | |
| Q2_K | Heavily degraded | 7.8 GB | Fits | ~87 tok/s |
GPUs that run Phi-4 14B comfortably
Models that run well on the Apple M2 Ultra (192GB)
Frequently asked questions
Can Apple M2 Ultra (192GB) run Phi-4 14B?
Yes. The Apple M2 Ultra (192GB) can run Phi-4 14B fully in unified memory at FP16 (full quality), using about 31.7 GB of the 144 GB available, at roughly 16 tokens/second.
How much VRAM does Phi-4 14B need?
About 11.2 GB at Q4_K_M with 8,192 tokens of context, and about 31.7 GB at full FP16 precision.
How fast is Phi-4 14B on the Apple M2 Ultra (192GB)?
Roughly 16 tokens per second at FP16, estimated from the Apple M2 Ultra (192GB)'s 800 GB/s memory bandwidth.