Apple
Best local LLMs for the Mac · M1/M2/M3 (base), 16 GB
16 GB unified memory · 100 GB/s · ~12 GB usable. The most common Mac. Comfortable with 8–14B models at Q4.
Try it with your context & use case
Preset to the Mac · M1/M2/M3 (base), 16 GB. Change the context length or filter by use case.
15 models run well and 1 run tight on Mac · M1/M2/M3 (base), 16 GB (any context — just fitting the weights) — 12 GB usable (≈72% of unified memory).
| Model | Size | Fit | Best quant | Needs | Memory | Speed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Qwen3 14B | 14.8B | Runs well | Q5_K_M | 11 GB | ~6.9 tok/s | |
| Qwen2.5 14B | 14.8B | Runs well | Q5_K_M | 11 GB | ~6.9 tok/s | |
| DeepSeek-R1 Distill Qwen 14B | 14.8B | Runs well | Q5_K_M | 11 GB | ~6.9 tok/s | |
| Phi-4 14B | 14.7B | Runs well | Q5_K_M | 11 GB | ~6.9 tok/s | |
| Mistral Nemo 12B | 12.2B | Runs well | Q6_K | 10 GB | ~7.2 tok/s | |
| Gemma 3 12B | 12.2B | Runs well | Q6_K | 10 GB | ~7.2 tok/s | |
| Gemma 2 9B | 9.2B | Runs well | Q8_0 | 10 GB | ~7.3 tok/s | |
| Qwen3 8B | 8.2B | Runs well | Q8_0 | 9.2 GB | ~8.3 tok/s | |
| Llama 3.1 8B | 8.0B | Runs well | Q8_0 | 9.0 GB | ~8.4 tok/s | |
| Qwen2.5-Coder 7B | 7.6B | Runs well | Q8_0 | 8.6 GB | ~8.9 tok/s | |
| Mistral 7B v0.3 | 7.3B | Runs well | Q8_0 | 8.2 GB | ~9.3 tok/s | |
| Gemma 3 4B | 4.3B | Runs well | FP16 | 9.1 GB | ~8.4 tok/s | |
| Qwen3 4B | 4B | Runs well | FP16 | 8.5 GB | ~9.0 tok/s | |
| Llama 3.2 3B | 3.2B | Runs well | FP16 | 7.0 GB | ~11 tok/s | |
| Llama 3.2 1B | 1.2B | Runs well | FP16 | 3.2 GB | ~29 tok/s | |
| Mistral Small 3 24B | 23.6B | Runs (tight) | Q2_K | 10 GB | ~7.3 tok/s | |
| DeepSeek-R1 671B-A37B (MoE)MoE | 671B | Won't fit | — | 273 GB | — | |
| Qwen3 235B-A22B (MoE)MoE | 235B | Won't fit | — | 96 GB | — | |
| Llama 4 Scout (MoE)MoE | 109B | Won't fit | — | 45 GB | — | |
| Qwen2.5 72B | 72.7B | Won't fit | — | 30 GB | — | |
| Llama 3.3 70B | 70.6B | Won't fit | — | 29 GB | — | |
| DeepSeek-R1 Distill Llama 70B | 70.6B | Won't fit | — | 29 GB | — | |
| Mixtral 8x7B (MoE)MoE | 46.7B | Won't fit | — | 20 GB | — | |
| Qwen3 32B | 32.8B | Won't fit | — | 14 GB | — | |
| Qwen2.5 32B | 32.8B | Won't fit | — | 14 GB | — | |
| Qwen2.5-Coder 32B | 32.8B | Won't fit | — | 14 GB | — | |
| DeepSeek-R1 Distill Qwen 32B | 32.8B | Won't fit | — | 14 GB | — | |
| Qwen3 30B-A3B (MoE)MoE | 30.5B | Won't fit | — | 13 GB | — | |
| Gemma 3 27B | 27.4B | Won't fit | — | 12 GB | — | |
| Gemma 2 27B | 27.2B | Won't fit | — | 12 GB | — |
Estimates, computed in your browser — VRAM, quantisation and speed vary with your runtime and settings. How we estimate →
Top picks for the Mac · M1/M2/M3 (base), 16 GB
Every model on the Mac · M1/M2/M3 (base), 16 GB
| Model | Size | Fit | Best quant | Needs | Speed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Qwen3 14B | 14.8B | Runs well | Q4 | 11 GB | ~8.1 tok/s |
| Qwen2.5 14B | 14.8B | Runs well | Q4 | 11 GB | ~8.1 tok/s |
| DeepSeek-R1 Distill Qwen 14B | 14.8B | Runs well | Q4 | 11 GB | ~8.1 tok/s |
| Phi-4 14B | 14.7B | Runs well | Q4 | 11 GB | ~8.1 tok/s |
| Mistral Nemo 12B | 12.2B | Runs well | Q5 | 10 GB | ~8.3 tok/s |
| Gemma 3 12B | 12.2B | Runs well | Q4 | 11 GB | ~9.8 tok/s |
| Gemma 2 9B | 9.2B | Runs well | Q6 | 11 GB | ~9.5 tok/s |
| Qwen3 8B | 8.2B | Runs well | Q8 | 10 GB | ~8.3 tok/s |
| Llama 3.1 8B | 8.0B | Runs well | Q8 | 10 GB | ~8.4 tok/s |
| Qwen2.5-Coder 7B | 7.6B | Runs well | Q8 | 9.0 GB | ~8.9 tok/s |
| Mistral 7B v0.3 | 7.3B | Runs well | Q8 | 9.2 GB | ~9.3 tok/s |
| Gemma 3 4B | 4.3B | Runs well | FP16 | 10 GB | ~8.4 tok/s |
| Qwen3 4B | 4B | Runs well | FP16 | 9.6 GB | ~9.0 tok/s |
| Llama 3.2 3B | 3.2B | Runs well | FP16 | 7.8 GB | ~11 tok/s |
| Llama 3.2 1B | 1.2B | Runs well | FP16 | 3.4 GB | ~29 tok/s |
| DeepSeek-R1 671B-A37B (MoE)MoE | 671B | Won't fit | — | 303 GB | — |
| Qwen3 235B-A22B (MoE)MoE | 235B | Won't fit | — | 98 GB | — |
| Llama 4 Scout (MoE)MoE | 109B | Won't fit | — | 46 GB | — |
| Qwen2.5 72B | 72.7B | Won't fit | — | 33 GB | — |
| Llama 3.3 70B | 70.6B | Won't fit | — | 32 GB | — |
| DeepSeek-R1 Distill Llama 70B | 70.6B | Won't fit | — | 32 GB | — |
| Mixtral 8x7B (MoE)MoE | 46.7B | Won't fit | — | 21 GB | — |
| Qwen3 32B | 32.8B | Won't fit | — | 16 GB | — |
| Qwen2.5 32B | 32.8B | Won't fit | — | 16 GB | — |
| Qwen2.5-Coder 32B | 32.8B | Won't fit | — | 16 GB | — |
| DeepSeek-R1 Distill Qwen 32B | 32.8B | Won't fit | — | 16 GB | — |
| Qwen3 30B-A3B (MoE)MoE | 30.5B | Won't fit | — | 14 GB | — |
| Gemma 3 27B | 27.4B | Won't fit | — | 16 GB | — |
| Gemma 2 27B | 27.2B | Won't fit | — | 15 GB | — |
| Mistral Small 3 24B | 23.6B | Won't fit | — | 12 GB | — |
Similar hardware
FAQ
What is the best LLM for the Mac · M1/M2/M3 (base), 16 GB?
For general use, Qwen3 14B is the strongest model that runs well on the Mac · M1/M2/M3 (base), 16 GB. See the picks-by-use-case below for coding, reasoning and more.
How much can the Mac · M1/M2/M3 (base), 16 GB run?
The Mac · M1/M2/M3 (base), 16 GB has 16 GB of unified memory, of which about 12 GB is usable for a model. That runs 15 of our tracked models well.
Estimates at 8K context — see how we compute these.