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Can the Apple M3 Max (64GB) run Mistral Nemo 12B?

Apple M3 Max (64GB) × Mistral Nemo 12B8K context
YesRuns fully on the GPU
Memory at FP1626.3 GB of 48 GB
Weights 24.4 GBKV cache 1.3 GBRuntime 0.6 GB
QuantFP16Full quality
Memory26.3 GBof 48 GB usable
Speed~10tokens per second
  1. FP16
  2. Q8_0
  3. Q6_K
  4. Q5_K_M
  5. Q4_K_M
  6. Q3_K_M
  7. Q2_K

Yes. The Apple M3 Max (64GB) can run Mistral Nemo 12B fully in unified memory at FP16 (full quality), using about 26.3 GB of the 48 GB available, at roughly 10 tokens/second.

Try other context lengths

Run it with Ollama

With Ollama installed, one command downloads and starts Mistral Nemo 12B:

ollama run mistral-nemo:12b

Ollama's default download is Q4_K_M (about 9.3 GB here). You have room for FP16, which is full quality: pick that GGUF in LM Studio or from Hugging Face.

New to this? Step-by-step setup for the Apple M3 Max (64GB)

Run it in the cloud

No Apple M3 Max (64GB)? Run Mistral Nemo 12B in the cloud.

Rent a cloud GPU by the hour. No upfront cost, stop any time.

Rent a GPU on RunPodRent a GPU on Vast.ai

Memory needed by quantization

At 8,192 tokens of context. The black line marks the 48 GB the Apple M3 Max (64GB) can use. macOS lets the GPU use about 48 GB of the 64 GB unified memory by default.

QuantQualityMemoryFits?Speed
FP16Full quality26.3 GBFits~10 tok/s
Q8_0Near-lossless14.9 GBFits~19 tok/s
Q6_KExcellent11.9 GBFits~24 tok/s
Q5_K_MVery good10.6 GBFits~28 tok/s
Q4_K_MGood, most popular9.3 GBFits~32 tok/s
Q3_K_MNoticeably degraded7.9 GBFits~40 tok/s
Q2_KHeavily degraded6.5 GBFits~52 tok/s

GPUs that run Mistral Nemo 12B comfortably

Models that run well on the Apple M3 Max (64GB)

Frequently asked questions

Can Apple M3 Max (64GB) run Mistral Nemo 12B?

Yes. The Apple M3 Max (64GB) can run Mistral Nemo 12B fully in unified memory at FP16 (full quality), using about 26.3 GB of the 48 GB available, at roughly 10 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 M3 Max (64GB)?

Roughly 10 tokens per second at FP16, estimated from the Apple M3 Max (64GB)'s 400 GB/s memory bandwidth.