Mac M1 Max 64G — what LLMs can it run?
73 of 87 indexed models fit comfortably in 64GB at 4K context, each at the highest-quality quant that still leaves headroom.
The short answer for Mac M1 Max 64G
64 GB, 400 GB/s. 73 of 87 models in this index fit comfortably at 4K context; 78 load at all.
- Biggest that fits
- GLM-4.5-Air — 37.2 GB at Q2_K — 10.8 GB spare at 4K, so longer context comes out of a thin margin.
- Room to grow
- Seed-OSS 36B Instruct — 27.8 GB at Q5_K_M — under 60% of the card, which leaves 20.2 GB for a long context window or a second process.
- Speed ceiling
- Llama 3.1 8B Instruct at Q4_K_M reads 4.6 GB of weights per token, so 400 GB/s puts a hard ceiling near 87 tok/s. That is arithmetic on two published numbers, not a benchmark — real throughput lands below it. No run on this card has been measured here, so there is nothing to compare the ceiling against.
- The wall you will hit
- The GPU's share of unified memory, not the 64 GB on the box. macOS reserves part of the pool for the system and caps what a single process may wire down, so the practical budget is meaningfully below nameplate — the limit is adjustable (`iogpu.wired_limit_mb`) but it is not absent. Bandwidth is 400 GB/s, which is the number that decides tok/s once a model fits.
70B+ · 2
| Model | Quant | Est. VRAM | Headroom | tok/s on RTX 4090 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GLM-4.5-Air106B MoE | Q2_K | 37.2 GB | +10.8 GB | — |
| Jamba 1.5 Mini52B-A12B | Q4_K_M | 33.01 GB | +15 GB | — |
32B · 23
| Model | Quant | Est. VRAM | Headroom | tok/s on RTX 4090 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kimi Linear 48B-A3B Instruct48B-A3B | Q4_K_M | 30.44 GB | +17.6 GB | — |
| Mixtral 8x7B Instruct47B MoE | Q4_K_M | 30.13 GB | +17.9 GB | — |
| Seed-OSS 36B Instruct36B | Q5_K_M | 27.81 GB | +20.2 GB | — |
| Command R 35B35B | Q4_K_M | 22.86 GB | +25.1 GB | 42Estimated |
| Yi 1.5 34B Chat34B | Q4_K_M | 22.82 GB | +25.2 GB | 40Estimated |
| Qwen3 32B Instruct32B | Q4_K_M | 21.85 GB | +26.2 GB | 42 |
| Qwen2.5 32B Instruct32B | Q4_K_M | 21.69 GB | +26.3 GB | 44 |
| Qwen2.5-Coder 32B Instruct32B | Q4_K_M | 21.69 GB | +26.3 GB | 44Estimated |
| DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-32B32B | Q4_K_M | 21.69 GB | +26.3 GB | 42Estimated |
| Gemma 4 31B IT31B | Q8_0 | 35.72 GB | +12.3 GB | — |
| Qwen3 30B-A3B Instruct30B-A3B | Q5_K_M | 23.04 GB | +25 GB | 82 |
| Qwen3-Coder 30B-A3B Instruct30B-A3B | Q5_K_M | 23.04 GB | +25 GB | 80 |
| Qwen3-VL 30B-A3B Instruct30B-A3B | Q8_0 | 34.28 GB | +13.7 GB | — |
| GLM-4.7-Flash30B-A3B | Q8_0 | 33.47 GB | +14.5 GB | — |
| Qwen3.8 27B27B | Q4_K_M | 17.47 GB | +30.5 GB | — |
| Gemma 3 27B IT27B | Q4_K_M | 18.37 GB | +29.6 GB | 48Community |
| Gemma 2 27B Instruct27B | Q5_K_M | 21.76 GB | +26.2 GB | 42Estimated |
| Gemma 4 26B-A4B IT26B-A4B | Q8_0 | 28.42 GB | +19.6 GB | — |
| Mistral Small 24B Instruct24B | Q4_K_M | 15.89 GB | +32.1 GB | 62Estimated |
| Devstral Small 1.1 24B24B | Q6_K | 20.91 GB | +27.1 GB | 48Estimated |
| Magistral Small 1.2 24B24B | Q6_K | 20.91 GB | +27.1 GB | 47Estimated |
| Codestral 22B22B | Q4_K_M | 15.03 GB | +33 GB | 58Estimated |
| GPT-OSS 20B21B MoE | MXFP4 | 11.72 GB | +36.3 GB | 195Community |
14B · 16
| Model | Quant | Est. VRAM | Headroom | tok/s on RTX 4090 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| InternLM2 20B Chat20B | Q5_K_M | 15.59 GB | +32.4 GB | 68Estimated |
| DeepSeek-Coder-V2-Lite Instruct16B-A2.4B | Q8_0 | 17.56 GB | +30.4 GB | 118Estimated |
| DeepSeek-V2-Lite Chat16B-A2.4B | Q4_K_M | 10.08 GB | +37.9 GB | 142Estimated |
| StarCoder2 15B15B | Q4_K_M | 10.19 GB | +37.8 GB | 92Estimated |
| Qwen3 14B Instruct14B | Q5_K_M | 11.65 GB | +36.4 GB | 78 |
| Qwen2.5 14B Instruct14B | Q5_K_M | 11.73 GB | +36.3 GB | 86Estimated |
| DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-14B14B | Q4_K_M | 10.14 GB | +37.9 GB | 95 |
| Phi-4 14B14B | Q5_K_M | 11.77 GB | +36.2 GB | 78Estimated |
| Phi-3 Medium 14B Instruct14B | Q6_K | 12.86 GB | +35.1 GB | 88Estimated |
| Mistral Nemo 12B Instruct12B | Q6_K | 11.14 GB | +36.9 GB | 95Estimated |
| Gemma 3 12B IT12B | Q5_K_M | 9.84 GB | +38.2 GB | 92Estimated |
| Stable LM 2 12B Chat12B | Q4_K_M | 8.35 GB | +39.7 GB | 108Estimated |
| Llama 3.2 11B Vision Instruct11B | Q8_0 | 12.9 GB | +35.1 GB | 72Estimated |
| Solar 10.7B Instruct11B | Q4_K_M | 7.6 GB | +40.4 GB | 125Estimated |
| Falcon 3 10B Instruct10B | Q4_K_M | 7.28 GB | +40.7 GB | 118Estimated |
| Gemma 2 9B Instruct9B | Q8_0 | 11.7 GB | +36.3 GB | 108Estimated |
7B · 22
| Model | Quant | Est. VRAM | Headroom | tok/s on RTX 4090 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GLM-4-9B-Chat9B | Q8_0 | 10.16 GB | +37.8 GB | 105Estimated |
| Qwen3-VL 8B Instruct8B | Q8_0 | 10.39 GB | +37.6 GB | 108Estimated |
| Ministral 3 8B Instruct8B | Q8_0 | 10.02 GB | +38 GB | — |
| Qwen2-VL 7B Instruct7B | Q4_K_M | 5.49 GB | +42.5 GB | 72Estimated |
| Granite 3.1 8B Instruct8B | Q4_K_M | 5.88 GB | +42.1 GB | 142Estimated |
| Qwen3 8B Instruct8B | Q6_K | 7.64 GB | +40.4 GB | 122 |
| Llama 3.1 8B Instruct8B | Q8_0 | 9.47 GB | +38.5 GB | 118 |
| Nous Hermes 3 Llama 3.1 8B8B | Q4_K_M | 5.64 GB | +42.4 GB | 148Estimated |
| Aya 23 8B8B | Q4_K_M | 5.64 GB | +42.4 GB | 145Estimated |
| OpenChat 3.6 8B8B | Q4_K_M | 5.64 GB | +42.4 GB | 146Estimated |
| DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Llama-8B8B | Q5_K_M | 6.51 GB | +41.5 GB | 128Estimated |
| InternLM2 7B Chat7B | Q4_K_M | 5.45 GB | +42.6 GB | 148Estimated |
| Qwen2.5 7B Instruct7B | Q6_K | 6.77 GB | +41.2 GB | 132 |
| Qwen2.5-Coder 7B Instruct7B | Q4_K_M | 5.07 GB | +42.9 GB | 158Estimated |
| DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-7B7B | Q4_K_M | 5.07 GB | +42.9 GB | 152Estimated |
| Gemma 4 E4B ITE4B | Q8_0 | 8.46 GB | +39.5 GB | — |
| OLMo 2 7B Instruct7B | Q8_0 | 10.3 GB | +37.7 GB | 125Estimated |
| WizardLM-2 7B7B | Q4_K_M | 5.14 GB | +42.9 GB | 152Estimated |
| Mistral 7B Instruct v0.37B | Q6_K | 6.75 GB | +41.3 GB | 135Estimated |
| Zephyr 7B Beta7B | Q6_K | 6.75 GB | +41.3 GB | 132Estimated |
| Gemma 4 E2B ITE2B | Q8_0 | 5.2 GB | +42.8 GB | — |
| Gemma 3 4B IT4B | Q8_0 | 5.05 GB | +43 GB | 145Estimated |
≤3B · 10
| Model | Quant | Est. VRAM | Headroom | tok/s on RTX 4090 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Qwen3 4B Instruct4B | Q6_K | 4.05 GB | +44 GB | 145 |
| Phi-4 Mini Instruct3.8B | Q8_0 | 4.81 GB | +43.2 GB | 262Estimated |
| Phi-3.5 Mini Instruct3.8B | Q8_0 | 5.89 GB | +42.1 GB | 255Estimated |
| Llama 3.2 3B Instruct3B | Q8_0 | 4.05 GB | +44 GB | 285Estimated |
| Qwen2.5 3B Instruct3B | Q8_0 | 3.59 GB | +44.4 GB | 290Estimated |
| Gemma 2 2B Instruct2B | Q8_0 | 3.34 GB | +44.7 GB | 320Estimated |
| Qwen3 1.7B Instruct1.7B | Q8_0 | 2.39 GB | +45.6 GB | 240Estimated |
| Qwen2.5 1.5B Instruct1.5B | Q8_0 | 1.83 GB | +46.2 GB | 410Estimated |
| Llama 3.2 1B Instruct1B | Q8_0 | 1.51 GB | +46.5 GB | 450Estimated |
| Qwen2.5 0.5B Instruct0.5B | Q8_0 | 0.6 GB | +47.4 GB | 540Estimated |
How this list is built
Each row is the lowest-perplexity-loss quant of that model whose estimated total — weights plus KV cache at 4K context plus activation buffer — uses at most 88% of the card. That is the calculator's "green" threshold, so every row here has real headroom rather than only just fitting. Raise the context length and the list shortens; the calculator lets you check any combination directly.
A further 5 models load but with no headroom to spare (up to 105% of VRAM) — the Quant Hub’s GPU chips count those too, which is why its number is higher.
Measured on this card
No benchmark runs in this index were recorded on a Mac M1 Max 64G. Every figure on this page is calculated from the model architecture and the quant level — treat them as estimates, not measurements. The speed column in the tables above is an RTX 4090 figure shown for reference — it is not a speed on this card.
Cards with the same budget
What fits is decided by memory, so every 64GB card of this type returns the same list. These pages are not different answers — they differ in throughput, which this index does not measure per card.
The same 64GB in system memory is a different machine — everything on this page fits there, at a speed set by your DIMMs rather than a graphics bus: 64 GB RAM (CPU)
Stepping up
A Mac M2 Max 96G (96GB) fits 7 more of the indexed models than this card. Mac M2 Max 96G →
Common questions
What is the best local LLM for a Mac M1 Max 64G?
For everyday use, Seed-OSS 36B Instruct at Q5_K_M — about 27.8 GB of the card's 64 GB at 4K context, leaving 20.2 GB for a longer window. If you want the largest thing that will load, that is GLM-4.5-Air at Q2_K (37.2 GB, 10.8 GB spare). "Best" here means best fit for the memory budget — this index does not run task benchmarks, so it cannot tell you which model is smarter.
Can a Mac M1 Max 64G run Llama 4 Scout 17B (16E)?
No. Its smallest build here, Q3_K_M, needs about 55.9 GB and this card has 48.0 GB usable — short by 7.9 GB before any context beyond 4K. The largest model this card does clear is GLM-4.5-Air.
How many tokens per second does a Mac M1 Max 64G do on an 8B model at Q4?
This index has no measured run on this card, so it does not publish a figure. What can be stated from specifications: generating a token requires reading every weight once, Llama 3.1 8B Instruct at Q4_K_M is 4.6 GB of weights, and this card moves 400 GB/s — a ceiling near 87 tok/s. Batch size, context length, the runtime and how much of the model sits in cache all take you below it.
Mac M1 Max 64G or Mac M5 Pro 64G for local LLMs?
They hold the same models: 64 GB against 64 GB fits 73 and 73 of 87 respectively at 4K. The difference is throughput — 400 GB/s against 307 GB/s, a 1.3× gap in how fast the weights can be read, which is what token generation is bound by. The Mac M1 Max 64G generates faster on any model both can hold.
73 of 87 indexed models fit comfortably in 64GB at 4K context, each at the highest-quality quant that still leaves headroom.
This page's figures change when the model or the runtime does.Last updated 2026-10-02 RSS → /feed.xml