What can MacBook Pro 16" M4 Max run for chat?

Build: MacBook Pro M4 Max 64GB

Memory: 64 GB unified memory
Runner: MLX-LM (Apple Metal)

Runs comfortably
236 models

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

#1Qwen 3 0.6B
0.6B
qwen
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 1.1 GBHeadroom: 54.9 GB
829
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
0.30 GB
KV cache
0.30 GB
Activations
0.02 GB
Runtime
0.50 GB
#2Qwen 3 1.7B
1.7B
qwen
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 2.3 GBHeadroom: 53.7 GB
293
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
0.90 GB
KV cache
0.85 GB
Activations
0.05 GB
Runtime
0.50 GB
#3TinyLlama 1.1B Chat v1.0
1.1B
llama
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 2,048VRAM: 1.3 GBHeadroom: 54.7 GB
452
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
0.60 GB
KV cache
0.14 GB
Activations
0.03 GB
Runtime
0.50 GB
#4Gemma 2 2B Instruct
2B
gemma
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 2.7 GBHeadroom: 53.3 GB
249
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
1.10 GB
KV cache
1.00 GB
Activations
0.06 GB
Runtime
0.50 GB
#5DeepSeek V2 Lite Chat
15.7B
deepseek
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 17.4 GBHeadroom: 38.6 GB
207
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
8.60 GB
KV cache
7.85 GB
Activations
0.44 GB
Runtime
0.50 GB
#6Kumru 2B
2.4B
mistral
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 3.3 GBHeadroom: 52.7 GB
ollama run alibayram/kumru:latest
207
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
1.50 GB
KV cache
1.20 GB
Activations
0.08 GB
Runtime
0.50 GB
#7TinyLlama 1.1B Chat v0.3 AWQ
1.1B
other
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 2,048VRAM: 1.3 GBHeadroom: 54.7 GB
452
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
0.60 GB
KV cache
0.14 GB
Activations
0.03 GB
Runtime
0.50 GB
#8TinyLlama 1.1B Chat v0.3 GPTQ
1.1B
other
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 2,048VRAM: 1.3 GBHeadroom: 54.7 GB
452
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
0.60 GB
KV cache
0.14 GB
Activations
0.03 GB
Runtime
0.50 GB
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 3.1 GBHeadroom: 52.9 GB
207
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
1.30 GB
KV cache
1.20 GB
Activations
0.07 GB
Runtime
0.50 GB
#10Falcon 3 3B Instruct
3B
falcon
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 3.8 GBHeadroom: 52.2 GB
166
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
1.70 GB
KV cache
1.50 GB
Activations
0.09 GB
Runtime
0.50 GB
#11PhoGPT 4B Chat
3.7B
other
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 4.5 GBHeadroom: 51.5 GB
134
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
2.00 GB
KV cache
1.85 GB
Activations
0.11 GB
Runtime
0.50 GB
#12Salamandra 2B Instruct
2B
llama
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 2.7 GBHeadroom: 53.3 GB
249
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
1.10 GB
KV cache
1.00 GB
Activations
0.06 GB
Runtime
0.50 GB

Runs with tradeoffs
11 models

Tight VRAM, partial CPU offload, or context-limited.

Mixtral 8x7B Instruct
47B
mixtral
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 53.4 GBHeadroom: 2.6 GB
  • Tight VRAM fit — only 2.6 GB headroom left for context growth
ollama run mixtral:8x7b
11
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
28.00 GB
KV cache
23.50 GB
Activations
1.41 GB
Runtime
0.50 GB
Qwen 3 32B
32B
qwen
Commercial OK
Quant: Q8_0Context: 8,192VRAM: 52.2 GBHeadroom: 3.8 GB
  • Tight VRAM fit — only 3.8 GB headroom left for context growth
ollama run qwen3:32b
9
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
34.00 GB
KV cache
16.00 GB
Activations
1.71 GB
Runtime
0.50 GB
DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 32B
32B
deepseek
Commercial OK
Quant: Q8_0Context: 8,192VRAM: 52.2 GBHeadroom: 3.8 GB
  • Tight VRAM fit — only 3.8 GB headroom left for context growth
ollama run deepseek-r1:32b
9
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
34.00 GB
KV cache
16.00 GB
Activations
1.71 GB
Runtime
0.50 GB
Qwen 2.5 32B Instruct
32B
qwen
Commercial OK
Quant: Q8_0Context: 8,192VRAM: 52.2 GBHeadroom: 3.8 GB
  • Tight VRAM fit — only 3.8 GB headroom left for context growth
ollama run qwen2.5:32b
9
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
34.00 GB
KV cache
16.00 GB
Activations
1.71 GB
Runtime
0.50 GB
OpenBioLLM Llama 3 70B
70B
openbiollm
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 2,048VRAM: 53.4 GBHeadroom: 2.6 GB
  • Tight VRAM fit — only 2.6 GB headroom left for context growth
7
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
42.00 GB
KV cache
8.75 GB
Activations
2.10 GB
Runtime
0.50 GB
Qwen 2.5 72B Instruct
72B
qwen
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 2,048VRAM: 52.6 GBHeadroom: 3.4 GB
  • Tight VRAM fit — only 3.4 GB headroom left for context growth
ollama run qwen2.5:72b
7
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
41.00 GB
KV cache
9.00 GB
Activations
2.05 GB
Runtime
0.50 GB
Molmo 72B
72B
other
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 2,048VRAM: 52.6 GBHeadroom: 3.4 GB
  • Tight VRAM fit — only 3.4 GB headroom left for context growth
7
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
41.00 GB
KV cache
9.00 GB
Activations
2.05 GB
Runtime
0.50 GB
Qwen 2.5 Math 72B
72B
qwen
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 2,048VRAM: 52.6 GBHeadroom: 3.4 GB
  • Tight VRAM fit — only 3.4 GB headroom left for context growth
7
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
41.00 GB
KV cache
9.00 GB
Activations
2.05 GB
Runtime
0.50 GB

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.

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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 56 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 56 GB available after OS overhead.

Qwen 3 235B-A22B
235B
qwen
Commercial OK

Needs ~160 GB unified memory minimum at smallest quant; you have 56 GB available after OS overhead.

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

Needs ~420 GB unified memory minimum at smallest quant; you have 56 GB available after OS overhead.

Llama 4 Scout
109B
llama
Commercial OK

Needs ~80 GB unified memory minimum at smallest quant; you have 56 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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