local intelligence

will it local

Best local LLMs for the Apple M4 Max

34.0GB · Apple M4 Max

546 GB/s (LPDDR5X-8533 x 512-bit) — highest-bandwidth consumer SoC; 36-128GB 8B Q4 ~30-38 tok/s, 14B ~19-24, 32B Q4 full at 64GB ~10-13 tok/s Approaches RTX 4090-class decode on 32B-and-below Q4 workloads

Shared-memory device — speed scales with RAM bandwidth (546.0 GB/s shared RAM), usable for inference ≈ 34.0 GB of 36 GB system RAM

explore the full catalogupgrade paths with live prices · what fits on each machine

Speed

computed band 58.0-85.0 tok/s for 8B Q4_K_M (roofline, 546.0 GB/s shared RAM); community: 30-38 tok/s 8B Q4_K_M (community Metal/Vulkan rows (gotcha-cited, 0905)); community: 19-24 tok/s 14B Q4_K_M (community Metal/Vulkan rows (gotcha-cited, 0905)); community: 10-13 tok/s 32B Q4_K_M (community Metal/Vulkan rows (gotcha-cited, 0905))

Effective decode window: 0.55–0.80 of 546 GB/s nominal → ~300–437 GB/s effective (llama.cpp decode, Q4_K_M basis; arch window, community-calibrated; nominal is LPDDR/JEDEC channel arithmetic (shared memory))

What fits (computed)

13b-q4 full 14.6 GB needed of 34 GB usable — headroom for context

3b-q4 full 2.8 GB needed of 34 GB usable — headroom for context

4b-q4 full 3.7 GB needed of 34 GB usable — headroom for context

8b-q4 full 6.1 GB needed of 34 GB usable — headroom for context

Cited community benches (3 rows)

→ 30-38 tok/s · 8B Q4_K_M · community Metal/Vulkan rows (gotcha-cited, 0905)

→ 19-24 tok/s · 14B Q4_K_M · community Metal/Vulkan rows (gotcha-cited, 0905)

→ 10-13 tok/s · 32B Q4_K_M · community Metal/Vulkan rows (gotcha-cited, 0905)

Runs fully in memory (machine alternatives)

Nominal bandwidth: 546.0 GB/s shared memory — see the effective decode window above

qwen3:0.6b on Raspberry Pi 5 + AI Kit (Hailo-8L) ($110) 0.6B · 0.6GB · needs ~1GB (4k ctx)

qwen3:1.7b on Raspberry Pi 5 + AI Kit (Hailo-8L) ($110) 1.7B · 1.4GB · needs ~1.8GB (4k ctx)

qwen3:4b on Raspberry Pi 5 + AI Kit (Hailo-8L) ($110) 4B · 2.6GB · needs ~3.2GB (4k ctx)

llama3.2:1b on Raspberry Pi 5 + AI Kit (Hailo-8L) ($110) 1B · 1.3GB · needs ~1.4GB (4k ctx)

llama3.2:3b on Raspberry Pi 5 + AI Kit (Hailo-8L) ($110) 3B · 2.0GB · needs ~2.4GB (4k ctx)

gemma3:1b on Raspberry Pi 5 + AI Kit (Hailo-8L) ($110) 1B · 1.0GB · needs ~1.1GB (4k ctx)

phi4:mini on Raspberry Pi 5 + AI Kit (Hailo-8L) ($110) mini 3.8B · 2.5GB · needs ~3GB (4k ctx)

moondream:2b on Raspberry Pi 5 + AI Kit (Hailo-8L) ($110) 2B · 1.7GB · needs ~3.7GB (4k ctx)

whisper:tiny on Raspberry Pi 5 + AI Kit (Hailo-8L) ($110) tiny · 0.1GB · needs ~2.1GB (4k ctx)

whisper on Raspberry Pi 5 + AI Kit (Hailo-8L) ($110) base · 0.3GB · needs ~2.3GB (4k ctx)

whisper:small on Raspberry Pi 5 + AI Kit (Hailo-8L) ($110) small · 0.9GB · needs ~2.9GB (4k ctx)

whisper:medium on Raspberry Pi 5 + AI Kit (Hailo-8L) ($110) medium · 3.1GB · needs ~5.1GB (4k ctx)

kokoro:82m on Raspberry Pi 5 + AI Kit (Hailo-8L) ($110) 82M · 0.3GB · needs ~2.3GB (4k ctx)

gemma3:4b on Raspberry Pi 5 + AI Kit (Hailo-8L) ($110) 4B · 3.3GB · needs ~3.8GB (4k ctx)

deepseek-r1:7b on Raspberry Pi 5 + AI Kit (Hailo-8L) ($110) distill 7B · 4.7GB · needs ~4.9GB (4k ctx)

mistral:7b on Raspberry Pi 5 + AI Kit (Hailo-8L) ($110) 7B · 4.1GB · needs ~4.6GB (4k ctx)

llava:7b on Raspberry Pi 5 + AI Kit (Hailo-8L) ($110) 7B · 4.7GB · needs ~6.7GB (4k ctx)

qwen3:8b on Tesla P100 (16GB, used) ($135) 8B · 5.2GB · needs ~5.8GB (4k ctx)

qwen2.5vl:7b on Tesla P100 (16GB, used) ($135) 7B · 5.6GB · needs ~5.8GB (4k ctx)

llama3.1:8b on Tesla P100 (16GB, used) ($135) 8B · 4.9GB · needs ~5.4GB (4k ctx)

deepseek-r1:8b on Tesla P100 (16GB, used) ($135) distill 8B · 4.9GB · needs ~5.4GB (4k ctx)

whisper:large-v3 on Tesla P100 (16GB, used) ($135) large-v3 · 6.2GB · needs ~8.2GB (4k ctx)

mistral-nemo:12b on Tesla P100 (16GB, used) ($135) 12B · 7.1GB · needs ~7.7GB (4k ctx)

sdxl on Tesla P100 (16GB, used) ($135) SDXL base · 6.9GB · needs ~8.9GB (4k ctx)

llava:13b on Tesla P100 (16GB, used) ($135) 13B · 8.0GB · needs ~11.1GB (4k ctx)

gemma3:12b on Tesla P100 (16GB, used) ($135) 12B · 8.1GB · needs ~9.6GB (4k ctx)

qwen3:14b on Tesla P100 (16GB, used) ($135) 14B · 9.3GB · needs ~9.9GB (4k ctx)

deepseek-r1:14b on Tesla P100 (16GB, used) ($135) distill 14B · 9.0GB · needs ~9.8GB (4k ctx)

phi4:14b on Tesla P100 (16GB, used) ($135) 14B · 9.1GB · needs ~9.9GB (4k ctx)

gpt-oss:20b on Tesla P40 (24GB, used) ($290) 20B MoE · 14GB · needs ~14.2GB (4k ctx)

devstral:24b on Tesla P40 (24GB, used) ($290) 24B · 14.6GB · needs ~15.2GB (4k ctx)

qwen3.8:27b on Mac mini M4 (32GB) ($999) 27B · 16.5GB · needs ~18.5GB (4k ctx)

gemma3:27b on Mac mini M4 (32GB) ($999) 27B · 17GB · needs ~18.9GB (4k ctx)

flux:schnell on Mac mini M4 (32GB) ($999) schnell fp8 · 17GB · needs ~19GB (4k ctx)

qwen3:30b-a3b on Mac mini M4 (32GB) ($999) 30B-A3B MoE · 18.6GB · needs ~19GB (4k ctx)

qwen3-coder:30b-a3b on Mac mini M4 (32GB) ($999) 30B-A3B MoE · 18.6GB · needs ~19GB (4k ctx)

qwen3:32b on Mac mini M4 (32GB) ($999) 32B · 20GB · needs ~21GB (4k ctx)

deepseek-r1:32b on Mac mini M4 (32GB) ($999) distill 32B · 20GB · needs ~21GB (4k ctx)

qwen2.5vl:32b on Mac mini M5 Pro (64GB) ($1669) 32B · 22GB · needs ~23GB (4k ctx)

flux:dev on Mac mini M5 Pro (64GB) ($1669) dev fp8 · 23GB · needs ~25GB (4k ctx)

mixtral:8x7b on Mac mini M5 Pro (64GB) ($1669) 8x7B MoE · 26GB · needs ~26.5GB (4k ctx)

Borderline — runs, but offloads

Gotchas

⚠ 546 GB/s (LPDDR5X-8533 x 512-bit) — highest-bandwidth consumer SoC; 36-128GB

⚠ 8B Q4 ~30-38 tok/s, 14B ~19-24, 32B Q4 full at 64GB ~10-13 tok/s

⚠ Approaches RTX 4090-class decode on 32B-and-below Q4 workloads

Where to go next

2026-09-18 · ← full hardware catalog · fit = working set vs VRAM · speeds are community-reported, cited in our knowledge base