Can MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB run Llama-3.1-70B-Instruct?

Apple · 128 GB LPDDR5X · 546 GB/s bandwidth · Meta · 70.6B · model ctx up to 128K

Yes — the MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB (128 GB LPDDR5X) can run Llama-3.1-70B-Instruct. At Q4 with the default 8K context it needs ≈ 53.83 GB VRAM (weights 38.83 GB + KV cache 14.0 GB + 1 GB runtime overhead), which fits within 128 GB. Decode at Q4/8K: ≈ 5.0 tok/s (estimated, batch 1). FP16 needs ≈ 156.2 GB — does not fit on this card. 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	46.83 GB	Yes	5.0 est.
Q4	8K default	53.83 GB	Yes	5.0 est.
Q4	32K	95.83 GB	Yes	5.0 est.
FP16	4K	149.2 GB	No	2.9 est.
FP16	8K default	156.2 GB	No	2.6 est.
FP16	32K	198.2 GB	No	1.6 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	MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB VRAM
Q4	38.83 GB	14.0 GB	1 GB	53.83 GB	128 GB
FP16	141.2 GB	14.0 GB	1 GB	156.2 GB	128 GB

Other GPUs that run Llama-3.1-70B-Instruct

• B200 192GB SXM — ≈520.0 tok/s Q4 measured
• MI300X 192GB — ≈48.2 tok/s Q4 est.
• H200 141GB SXM5 — ≈43.6 tok/s Q4 est.
• H100 80GB SXM5 — ≈30.5 tok/s Q4 est.
• Gaudi 3 128GB — ≈29.8 tok/s Q4 est.
• A100 80GB SXM4 — ≈18.5 tok/s Q4 est.
• Mac Studio M2 Ultra 192GB — ≈8.0 tok/s Q4 measured
• Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB — ≈7.4 tok/s Q4 est.

All GPUs for Llama-3.1-70B-Instruct →

Other models for the MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB

• Qwen3-0.6B — ≈434.3 tok/s Q4 est.
• gemma-3-1b-it — ≈347.5 tok/s Q4 est.
• Llama-3.2-1B-Instruct — ≈289.5 tok/s Q4 est.
• Qwen3-1.7B — ≈173.7 tok/s Q4 est.
• Qwen3-30B-A3B — ≈115.8 tok/s Q4 est.
• Qwen3-Coder-30B-A3B-Instruct — ≈115.8 tok/s Q4 est.
• GLM-4.7-Flash — ≈115.8 tok/s Q4 est.
• Qwen3-30B-A3B-Instruct-2507 — ≈115.8 tok/s Q4 est.

All models on the MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB →