What can MacBook Pro 16" M4 Max run for long context?

Build: MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB

Memory: 128 GB unified memory
Runner: MLX-LM (Apple Metal)
AnyChatCodingAgentsReasoningVisionLong contextCreative

Runs comfortably
230 models

Ranked by fit for long context use case + predicted speed. Click a row for VRAM breakdown.

#1Ministral 3B Instruct
3B
mistral
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 4.0 GBHeadroom: 116.0 GB
166
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
1.90 GB
KV cache
1.50 GB
Activations
0.10 GB
Runtime
0.50 GB
Model details →
#2Phi-3.5 Mini Instruct
3.8B
phi
Commercial OK
Quant: Q8_0Context: 8,192VRAM: 6.7 GBHeadroom: 113.3 GB
ollama run phi3.5:3.8b
74
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
4.10 GB
KV cache
1.90 GB
Activations
0.21 GB
Runtime
0.50 GB
Model details →
#3Falcon Mamba 7B
7B
falcon
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 8.4 GBHeadroom: 111.6 GB
71
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
4.20 GB
KV cache
3.50 GB
Activations
0.22 GB
Runtime
0.50 GB
Model details →
#4Codestral Mamba 7B
7B
mistral
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 8.4 GBHeadroom: 111.6 GB
71
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
4.20 GB
KV cache
3.50 GB
Activations
0.22 GB
Runtime
0.50 GB
Model details →
#5Gemma 4 E4B (Effective 4B)
4B
gemma
Commercial OK
Quant: Q8_0Context: 8,192VRAM: 7.1 GBHeadroom: 112.9 GB
ollama run gemma4:e4b
71
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
4.40 GB
KV cache
2.00 GB
Activations
0.23 GB
Runtime
0.50 GB
Model details →
#6Command R7B (12-2024)
8B
command-r
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 9.1 GBHeadroom: 110.9 GB
62
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
4.40 GB
KV cache
4.00 GB
Activations
0.23 GB
Runtime
0.50 GB
Model details →
#7Ministral 8B Instruct
8B
mistral
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 9.8 GBHeadroom: 110.2 GB
62
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
5.00 GB
KV cache
4.00 GB
Activations
0.26 GB
Runtime
0.50 GB
Model details →
#8Jamba 1.5 Mini
52B
other
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 58.0 GBHeadroom: 62.0 GB
41
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
30.00 GB
KV cache
26.00 GB
Activations
1.51 GB
Runtime
0.50 GB
Model details →
#9DeepSeek V2 Lite Chat
15.7B
deepseek
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 17.4 GBHeadroom: 102.6 GB
207
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
8.60 GB
KV cache
7.85 GB
Activations
0.44 GB
Runtime
0.50 GB
Model details →
#10Qwen 2.5 7B Instruct
7B
qwen
Commercial OK
Quant: Q8_0Context: 8,192VRAM: 9.5 GBHeadroom: 110.5 GB
ollama run qwen2.5:7b
40
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
8.10 GB
KV cache
0.47 GB
Activations
0.41 GB
Runtime
0.50 GB
Model details →
#11Qwen 3 8B
8B
qwen
Commercial OK
Quant: Q8_0Context: 8,192VRAM: 13.1 GBHeadroom: 106.9 GB
ollama run qwen3:8b
35
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
8.20 GB
KV cache
4.00 GB
Activations
0.42 GB
Runtime
0.50 GB
Model details →
#12InternLM 2.5 7B Chat
7B
internlm
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 8.6 GBHeadroom: 111.4 GB
71
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
4.40 GB
KV cache
3.50 GB
Activations
0.23 GB
Runtime
0.50 GB
Model details →

What if you upgraded?

Hypothetical scenarios. We re-ran the compatibility engine for each.

Move up an Apple memory tier

~$200–400 over base

On Apple Silicon, more unified memory is the only path forward — VRAM and system RAM are the same pool.

Shop this upgrade↗

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Won't run
top 5 popular models

Need more memory than you have. Shown for orientation.

DeepSeek V4 Pro (1.6T MoE)
1600B
deepseek
Commercial OK

Needs ~1024 GB unified memory minimum at smallest quant; you have 120 GB available after OS overhead.

—
Qwen 3.5 235B-A17B (MoE)
397B
qwen
Commercial OK

Needs ~256 GB unified memory minimum at smallest quant; you have 120 GB available after OS overhead.

—
Qwen 3 235B-A22B
235B
qwen
Commercial OK

Needs ~160 GB unified memory minimum at smallest quant; you have 120 GB available after OS overhead.

—
DeepSeek R1 (671B reasoning)
671B
deepseek
Commercial OK

Needs ~420 GB unified memory minimum at smallest quant; you have 120 GB available after OS overhead.

—
DeepSeek V4 Flash (284B MoE)
284B
deepseek
Commercial OK

Needs ~192 GB unified memory minimum at smallest quant; you have 120 GB available after OS overhead.

—

How to read these numbers

Measured here
Measured here - RunLocalAI ran this exact combo on owner hardware with public evidence.

Source-backed
Source-backed / community - a reproduced public source supports the speed, but it is not labeled as owner-measured.

Extrapolated
Extrapolated - predicted from a measured benchmark on similar-bandwidth hardware.

Estimated
Estimated - formula based on VRAM bandwidth and model architecture; not a benchmark row.

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