Can MacBook Pro M1 Max 64GB run Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct?

Apple · 64 GB LPDDR5 · 400 GB/s bandwidth · Meta · 8.0B · model ctx up to 128K

METAL

Yes — the MacBook Pro M1 Max 64GB (64 GB LPDDR5) can run Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct. At Q4 with the default 8K context it needs ≈ 7.0 GB VRAM (weights 4.4 GB + KV cache 1.6 GB + 1 GB runtime overhead), which fits within 64 GB. Decode at Q4/8K: ≈ 31.8 tok/s (estimated, batch 1). FP16 (≈ 18.6 GB) also fits, at ≈ 8.8 tok/s (estimated). Estimates come from memory-bandwidth math; rows tagged measured override estimates. Relative ranking is more reliable than absolute tok/s. Methodology. Buy MacBook Pro M1 Max 64GB on Amazon →

Fit & speed by quant and context

Quant	Context	VRAM needed	Fits?	tok/s (decode)
Q4	4K	6.2 GB	Yes	31.8 ± est.
Q4	8K default	7.0 GB	Yes	31.8 ± est.
Q4	32K	11.8 GB	Yes	31.8 ± est.
FP16	4K	17.8 GB	Yes	8.8 ± est.
FP16	8K default	18.6 GB	Yes	8.8 ± est.
FP16	32K	23.4 GB	Yes	8.8 ± est.

Fits = weights + KV(ctx) + 1 GB overhead ≤ 95% of VRAM. Measured anchors are context-agnostic; the fit verdict is recomputed per context. A missing tok/s means the model is far beyond this card (offload-only territory).

VRAM breakdown at 8K context

Quant	Weights	KV cache	Overhead	Total needed	MacBook Pro M1 Max 64GB VRAM
Q4	4.4 GB	1.6 GB	1 GB	7.0 GB	64 GB
FP16	16.0 GB	1.6 GB	1 GB	18.6 GB	64 GB

Other GPUs that run Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct

• B200 192GB SXM — ≈636.4 tok/s Q4 est.
• MI300X 192GB — ≈421.6 tok/s Q4 est.
• H200 141GB SXM5 — ≈381.8 tok/s Q4 est.
• H100 80GB SXM5 — ≈266.5 tok/s Q4 est.
• Gaudi 3 128GB — ≈260.6 tok/s Q4 est.
• RTX 5090 32GB — ≈214.3 tok/s Q4 measured
• A100 80GB SXM4 — ≈162.2 tok/s Q4 est.
• RTX 4090 24GB — ≈145.0 tok/s Q4 measured

All GPUs for Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct →

Other models for the MacBook Pro M1 Max 64GB

• MiniCPM5-1B — ≈235.7 tok/s Q4 est.
• Qwen3.5-2B — ≈127.3 tok/s Q4 est.
• DeepSeek-R1-0528-Qwen3-8B-layer-mix-bpw-3.8-mlx — ≈110.7 tok/s Q4 est.
• Qwen3.6-35B-A3B — ≈84.8 tok/s Q4 est.
• Qwen3.5-35B-A3B — ≈84.8 tok/s Q4 est.
• GLM-4.7-Flash — ≈84.8 tok/s Q4 est.
• Qwen3-30B-A3B-Instruct-2507 — ≈84.8 tok/s Q4 est.
• Nemotron-3-Nano-Omni-30B-A3B-Reasoning-BF16 — ≈84.8 tok/s Q4 est.

All models on the MacBook Pro M1 Max 64GB →