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Can the Apple M1 Max (64GB) run Gemma 2 9B?

Apple M1 Max (64GB) × Gemma 2 9B8K context
YesRuns fully on the GPU
Memory at FP1621.2 GB of 48 GB
Weights 18.5 GBKV cache 2.1 GBRuntime 0.6 GB
QuantFP16Full quality
Speed~13tokens per second
Max context8Kthe model's full window
  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 Max (64GB) can run Gemma 2 9B fully in unified memory at FP16 (full quality), using about 21.2 GB of the 48 GB available, at roughly 13 tokens/second.

Try other context lengths

Run it with Ollama

With Ollama installed, one command downloads and starts Gemma 2 9B:

ollama run gemma2:9b

Ollama's default download is Q4_K_M (about 8.3 GB here). You have room for FP16, which is full quality: pick that GGUF in LM Studio or from Hugging Face.

New to this? Step-by-step setup for the Apple M1 Max (64GB)

Run it in the cloud

No Apple M1 Max (64GB)? Run Gemma 2 9B in the cloud.

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

Rent a GPU on RunPodRent a GPU on Vast.ai

Memory needed by quantization

At 8,192 tokens of context. The black line marks the 48 GB the Apple M1 Max (64GB) can use. macOS lets the GPU use about 48 GB of the 64 GB unified memory by default.

QuantQualityMemoryFits?Speed
FP16Full quality21.2 GBFits~13 tok/s
Q8_0Near-lossless12.5 GBFits~24 tok/s
Q6_KExcellent10.3 GBFits~32 tok/s
Q5_K_MVery good9.3 GBFits~37 tok/s
Q4_K_MGood, most popular8.3 GBFits~43 tok/s
Q3_K_MNoticeably degraded7.2 GBFits~53 tok/s
Q2_KHeavily degraded6.2 GBFits~69 tok/s

Measured speed from real Apple M1 Max (64GB) owners

Tokens per second that people measured on their own Apple M1 Max (64GB), next to our estimate.

No one has measured Gemma 2 9B on the Apple M1 Max (64GB) yet. The speeds above are estimates. Run the benchmark and yours becomes the first real number on this page.

Have an Apple M1 Max (64GB)? Add your real speed

One command times Gemma 2 9B 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 -- gemma2:9b

Windows (PowerShell)

$env:GPUFIT_MODEL="gemma2:9b"; irm https://gpufit.dev/bench.ps1 | iex

How the benchmark works

GPUs that run Gemma 2 9B comfortably

Models that run well on the Apple M1 Max (64GB)

Frequently asked questions

Can Apple M1 Max (64GB) run Gemma 2 9B?

Yes. The Apple M1 Max (64GB) can run Gemma 2 9B fully in unified memory at FP16 (full quality), using about 21.2 GB of the 48 GB available, at roughly 13 tokens/second.

How much VRAM does Gemma 2 9B need?

About 8.3 GB at Q4_K_M with 8,192 tokens of context, and about 21.2 GB at full FP16 precision.

How fast is Gemma 2 9B on the Apple M1 Max (64GB)?

Roughly 13 tokens per second at FP16, estimated from the Apple M1 Max (64GB)'s 400 GB/s memory bandwidth.