Can the Apple M3 Max (64GB) run Mixtral 8x7B?
- FP16
- Q8_0
- Q6_K
- Q5_K_M
- Q4_K_M
- Q3_K_M
- Q2_K
Yes. The Apple M3 Max (64GB) can run Mixtral 8x7B fully in unified memory at Q6_K (excellent), using about 40 GB of the 48 GB available, at roughly 23 tokens/second.
Run it with Ollama
With Ollama installed, one command downloads and starts Mixtral 8x7B:
ollama run mixtral:8x7bOllama's default download is Q4_K_M (about 30 GB here). You have room for Q6_K, which is excellent: pick that GGUF in LM Studio or from Hugging Face.
Run it in the cloud
No Apple M3 Max (64GB)? Run Mixtral 8x7B 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 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.
| Quant | Quality | Memory | Fits? | Speed | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FP16 | Full quality | 95.1 GB | Too big | — | |
| Q8_0 | Near-lossless | 51.3 GB | Too big | — | |
| Q6_K | Excellent | 40 GB | Fits | ~23 tok/s | |
| Q5_K_M | Very good | 34.9 GB | Fits | ~26 tok/s | |
| Q4_K_M | Good, most popular | 30 GB | Fits | ~31 tok/s | |
| Q3_K_M | Noticeably degraded | 24.5 GB | Fits | ~38 tok/s | |
| Q2_K | Heavily degraded | 19.2 GB | Fits | ~50 tok/s |
GPUs that run Mixtral 8x7B comfortably
Models that run well on the Apple M3 Max (64GB)
Frequently asked questions
Can Apple M3 Max (64GB) run Mixtral 8x7B?
Yes. The Apple M3 Max (64GB) can run Mixtral 8x7B fully in unified memory at Q6_K (excellent), using about 40 GB of the 48 GB available, at roughly 23 tokens/second.
How much VRAM does Mixtral 8x7B need?
About 30 GB at Q4_K_M with 8,192 tokens of context, and about 95.1 GB at full FP16 precision.
How fast is Mixtral 8x7B on the Apple M3 Max (64GB)?
Roughly 23 tokens per second at Q6_K, estimated from the Apple M3 Max (64GB)'s 400 GB/s memory bandwidth.