Can Mac mini M4 32GB run Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct?

Apple · 32 GB LPDDR5X · 120 GB/s bandwidth · Meta · 8.0B · model ctx up to 128K

Yes — the Mac mini M4 32GB (32 GB LPDDR5X) 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 32 GB. Decode at Q4/8K: ≈ 21.0 tok/s (measured, batch 1). FP16 (≈ 18.6 GB) also fits, at ≈ 2.6 tok/s (estimated). Estimates come from memory-bandwidth math; rows tagged measured override estimates. Relative ranking is more reliable than absolute tok/s. Methodology.

Fit & speed by quant and context

Quant	Context	VRAM needed	Fits?	tok/s (decode)
Q4	4K	6.2 GB	Yes	21.0 measured
Q4	8K default	7.0 GB	Yes	21.0 measured
Q4	32K	11.8 GB	Yes	21.0 measured
FP16	4K	17.8 GB	Yes	2.6 est.
FP16	8K default	18.6 GB	Yes	2.6 est.
FP16	32K	23.4 GB	Yes	2.6 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	Mac mini M4 32GB VRAM
Q4	4.4 GB	1.6 GB	1 GB	7.0 GB	32 GB
FP16	16.0 GB	1.6 GB	1 GB	18.6 GB	32 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 6000 Ada 48GB — ≈138.6 tok/s Q4 measured

All GPUs for Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct →

Other models for the Mac mini M4 32GB

• Qwen3-0.6B — ≈95.5 tok/s Q4 est.
• gemma-3-1b-it — ≈76.4 tok/s Q4 est.
• Llama-3.2-1B-Instruct — ≈63.6 tok/s Q4 est.
• Llama-3.2-3B-Instruct — ≈41.3 tok/s Q4 measured
• Qwen3-1.7B — ≈38.2 tok/s Q4 est.
• Qwen3-30B-A3B — ≈25.5 tok/s Q4 est.
• Qwen3-Coder-30B-A3B-Instruct — ≈25.5 tok/s Q4 est.
• GLM-4.7-Flash — ≈25.5 tok/s Q4 est.

All models on the Mac mini M4 32GB →