Can the Apple M4 Pro (48GB) run Mixtral 8x7B?
- FP16
- Q8_0
- Q6_K
- Q5_K_M
- Q4_K_M
- Q3_K_M
- Q2_K
Yes. The Apple M4 Pro (48GB) can run Mixtral 8x7B fully in unified memory at Q5_K_M (very good), using about 34.9 GB of the 36 GB available, at roughly 18 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 Q5_K_M, which is very good: pick that GGUF in LM Studio or from Hugging Face.
New to this? Step-by-step setup for the Apple M4 Pro (48GB)
Run it in the cloud
No Apple M4 Pro (48GB)? 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 36 GB the Apple M4 Pro (48GB) can use. macOS lets the GPU use about 36 GB of the 48 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 | Too big | — | |
| Q5_K_M | Very good | 34.9 GB | Fits | ~18 tok/s | |
| Q4_K_M | Good, most popular | 30 GB | Fits | ~21 tok/s | |
| Q3_K_M | Noticeably degraded | 24.5 GB | Fits | ~26 tok/s | |
| Q2_K | Heavily degraded | 19.2 GB | Fits | ~34 tok/s |
GPUs that run Mixtral 8x7B comfortably
Frequently asked questions
Can Apple M4 Pro (48GB) run Mixtral 8x7B?
Yes. The Apple M4 Pro (48GB) can run Mixtral 8x7B fully in unified memory at Q5_K_M (very good), using about 34.9 GB of the 36 GB available, at roughly 18 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 M4 Pro (48GB)?
Roughly 18 tokens per second at Q5_K_M, estimated from the Apple M4 Pro (48GB)'s 273 GB/s memory bandwidth.