Apple
Best local LLMs for the Mac · M1/M2/M3 (base), 8 GB
8 GB unified memory · 100 GB/s · ~5.8 GB usable. Only ~5–6 GB is usable for a model. Small models only.
Try it with your context & use case
Preset to the Mac · M1/M2/M3 (base), 8 GB. Change the context length or filter by use case.
8 models run well and 3 run tight on Mac · M1/M2/M3 (base), 8 GB (any context — just fitting the weights) — 5.8 GB usable (≈72% of unified memory).
| Model | Size | Fit | Best quant | Needs | Memory | Speed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Qwen3 8B | 8.2B | Runs well | Q4_K_M | 5.5 GB | ~15 tok/s | |
| Llama 3.1 8B | 8.0B | Runs well | Q4_K_M | 5.4 GB | ~15 tok/s | |
| Qwen2.5-Coder 7B | 7.6B | Runs well | Q4_K_M | 5.2 GB | ~16 tok/s | |
| Mistral 7B v0.3 | 7.3B | Runs well | Q5_K_M | 5.7 GB | ~14 tok/s | |
| Gemma 3 4B | 4.3B | Runs well | Q8_0 | 5.2 GB | ~16 tok/s | |
| Qwen3 4B | 4B | Runs well | Q8_0 | 4.9 GB | ~17 tok/s | |
| Llama 3.2 3B | 3.2B | Runs well | Q8_0 | 4.1 GB | ~21 tok/s | |
| Llama 3.2 1B | 1.2B | Runs well | FP16 | 3.2 GB | ~29 tok/s | |
| Mistral Nemo 12B | 12.2B | Runs (tight) | Q2_K | 5.7 GB | ~14 tok/s | |
| Gemma 3 12B | 12.2B | Runs (tight) | Q2_K | 5.7 GB | ~14 tok/s | |
| Gemma 2 9B | 9.2B | Runs (tight) | Q3_K_M | 5.1 GB | ~16 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 | — | |
| Mistral Small 3 24B | 23.6B | Won't fit | — | 10 GB | — | |
| Qwen3 14B | 14.8B | Won't fit | — | 6.8 GB | — | |
| Qwen2.5 14B | 14.8B | Won't fit | — | 6.8 GB | — | |
| DeepSeek-R1 Distill Qwen 14B | 14.8B | Won't fit | — | 6.8 GB | — | |
| Phi-4 14B | 14.7B | Won't fit | — | 6.7 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), 8 GB
Every model on the Mac · M1/M2/M3 (base), 8 GB
| Model | Size | Fit | Best quant | Needs | Speed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Qwen2.5-Coder 7B | 7.6B | Runs well | Q4 | 5.6 GB | ~16 tok/s |
| Gemma 3 4B | 4.3B | Runs well | Q6 | 5.2 GB | ~20 tok/s |
| Qwen3 4B | 4B | Runs well | Q6 | 5.1 GB | ~22 tok/s |
| Llama 3.2 3B | 3.2B | Runs well | Q8 | 4.9 GB | ~21 tok/s |
| Llama 3.2 1B | 1.2B | Runs well | FP16 | 3.4 GB | ~29 tok/s |
| Qwen3 8B | 8.2B | Runs (tight) | Q3 | 5.8 GB | ~18 tok/s |
| Llama 3.1 8B | 8.0B | Runs (tight) | Q3 | 5.6 GB | ~18 tok/s |
| Mistral 7B v0.3 | 7.3B | Runs (tight) | Q3 | 5.2 GB | ~20 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 | — |
| Qwen3 14B | 14.8B | Won't fit | — | 8.0 GB | — |
| Qwen2.5 14B | 14.8B | Won't fit | — | 8.3 GB | — |
| DeepSeek-R1 Distill Qwen 14B | 14.8B | Won't fit | — | 8.3 GB | — |
| Phi-4 14B | 14.7B | Won't fit | — | 8.3 GB | — |
| Mistral Nemo 12B | 12.2B | Won't fit | — | 6.9 GB | — |
| Gemma 3 12B | 12.2B | Won't fit | — | 8.7 GB | — |
| Gemma 2 9B | 9.2B | Won't fit | — | 7.1 GB | — |
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FAQ
What is the best LLM for the Mac · M1/M2/M3 (base), 8 GB?
For general use, Gemma 3 4B is the strongest model that runs well on the Mac · M1/M2/M3 (base), 8 GB. See the picks-by-use-case below for coding, reasoning and more.
How much can the Mac · M1/M2/M3 (base), 8 GB run?
The Mac · M1/M2/M3 (base), 8 GB has 8 GB of unified memory, of which about 5.8 GB is usable for a model. That runs 5 of our tracked models well and 3 more at a tight quantisation.
Estimates at 8K context — see how we compute these.