Can the Apple M4 (16GB) run Qwen2.5 7B?
- FP16
- Q8_0
- Q6_K
- Q5_K_M
- Q4_K_M
- Q3_K_M
- Q2_K
Yes. The Apple M4 (16GB) can run Qwen2.5 7B fully in unified memory at Q8_0 (near-lossless), using about 9.2 GB of the 10.7 GB available, at roughly 9 tokens/second.
Run it with Ollama
With Ollama installed, one command downloads and starts Qwen2.5 7B:
ollama run qwen2.5:7bOllama's default download is Q4_K_M (about 5.7 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 M4 (16GB)
Run it in the cloud
No Apple M4 (16GB)? Run Qwen2.5 7B 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 M4 (16GB) can use. macOS lets the GPU use about 10.7 GB of the 16 GB unified memory by default.
| Quant | Quality | Memory | Fits? | Speed | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FP16 | Full quality | 16.3 GB | Too big | — | |
| Q8_0 | Near-lossless | 9.2 GB | Fits | ~9 tok/s | |
| Q6_K | Excellent | 7.3 GB | Fits | ~12 tok/s | |
| Q5_K_M | Very good | 6.5 GB | Fits | ~13 tok/s | |
| Q4_K_M | Good, most popular | 5.7 GB | Fits | ~16 tok/s | |
| Q3_K_M | Noticeably degraded | 4.8 GB | Fits | ~19 tok/s | |
| Q2_K | Heavily degraded | 3.9 GB | Fits | ~25 tok/s |
GPUs that run Qwen2.5 7B comfortably
Frequently asked questions
Can Apple M4 (16GB) run Qwen2.5 7B?
Yes. The Apple M4 (16GB) can run Qwen2.5 7B fully in unified memory at Q8_0 (near-lossless), using about 9.2 GB of the 10.7 GB available, at roughly 9 tokens/second.
How much VRAM does Qwen2.5 7B need?
About 5.7 GB at Q4_K_M with 8,192 tokens of context, and about 16.3 GB at full FP16 precision.
How fast is Qwen2.5 7B on the Apple M4 (16GB)?
Roughly 9 tokens per second at Q8_0, estimated from the Apple M4 (16GB)'s 120 GB/s memory bandwidth.