Can the Apple M1 (16GB) run Granite 3.3 8B?

Apple M1 (16GB) × Granite 3.3 8B8K context
YesRuns fully on the GPU
Memory at Q8_010.6 GB of 10.7 GB
Weights 8.7 GBKV cache 1.3 GBRuntime 0.6 GB
QuantQ8_0Near-lossless
Speed~5tokens per second
Max context7Ktokens that fit at Q8_0
  1. FP16
  2. Q8_0
  3. Q6_K
  4. Q5_K_M
  5. Q4_K_M
  6. Q3_K_M
  7. Q2_K

Yes. The Apple M1 (16GB) can run Granite 3.3 8B fully in unified memory at Q8_0 (near-lossless), using about 10.6 GB of the 10.7 GB available, at roughly 5 tokens/second.

Run it with Ollama

With Ollama installed, one command downloads and starts Granite 3.3 8B:

ollama run granite3.3:8b

Ollama's default download is Q4_K_M (about 6.9 GB here). You have room for Q8_0, which is near-lossless: pick that GGUF in LM Studio or from Hugging Face.

New to this? Step-by-step setup for the Apple M1 (16GB)

Run it in the cloud

No Apple M1 (16GB)? Run Granite 3.3 8B in the cloud.

Rent a cloud GPU by the hour. No upfront cost, stop any time.

Memory needed by quantization

At 8,192 tokens of context. The black line marks the 10.7 GB the Apple M1 (16GB) can use. macOS lets the GPU use about 10.7 GB of the 16 GB unified memory by default.

QuantQualityMemoryFits?Speed
FP16Full quality18.3 GBToo big—
Q8_0Near-lossless10.6 GBFits~5 tok/s
Q6_KExcellent8.6 GBFits~6 tok/s
Q5_K_MVery good7.8 GBFits~7 tok/s
Q4_K_MGood, most popular6.9 GBFits~8 tok/s
Q3_K_MNoticeably degraded5.9 GBFits~10 tok/s
Q2_KHeavily degraded5 GBFits~13 tok/s

Measured speed from real Apple M1 (16GB) owners

Tokens per second that people measured on their own Apple M1 (16GB), next to our estimate.

No one has measured Granite 3.3 8B on the Apple M1 (16GB) yet. The speeds above are estimates. Run the benchmark and yours becomes the first real number on this page.

Have an Apple M1 (16GB)? Add your real speed

One command times Granite 3.3 8B in your own Ollama, shows you exactly what it would send, and asks before sending anything. No sign-up, no personal data.

macOS and Linux

curl -fsSL https://gpufit.dev/bench.sh | sh -s -- granite3.3:8b

Windows (PowerShell)

$env:GPUFIT_MODEL="granite3.3:8b"; irm https://gpufit.dev/bench.ps1 | iex

How the benchmark works

Frequently asked questions

Can Apple M1 (16GB) run Granite 3.3 8B?

Yes. The Apple M1 (16GB) can run Granite 3.3 8B fully in unified memory at Q8_0 (near-lossless), using about 10.6 GB of the 10.7 GB available, at roughly 5 tokens/second.

How much VRAM does Granite 3.3 8B need?

About 6.9 GB at Q4_K_M with 8,192 tokens of context, and about 18.3 GB at full FP16 precision.

How fast is Granite 3.3 8B on the Apple M1 (16GB)?

Roughly 5 tokens per second at Q8_0, estimated from the Apple M1 (16GB)'s 68 GB/s memory bandwidth.