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All estimates are approximations based on mathematical models and public specifications. Actual performance may vary. Do not make purchasing decisions based solely on these estimates.

Data sourced from Hugging Face, Ollama, and official model documentation. Model names and logos are trademarks of their respective owners.

© 2026 Will It Run AI — Fase Consulting Ibiza, S.L. (NIF: B57969656)

Home/Meta Llama 3.1 8B Instruct/on Mac mini M4 32GB

Can it run?

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

CUsable

Runs well

Using Q4_K_M in Ollama

Capabilities:

Fit status

Runs well

Decode

17.7 tok/s

TTFT

10935 ms

Safe context

34K

Memory

10.8 GB / 23.0 GB

Memory breakdown

Weights4.9 GB
KV Cache1.3 GB
Runtime1.2 GB
Headroom3.5 GB

Performance by workload

WorkloadGradeFitDecodeTTFTContext
Agentic CodingCRuns well17.7 tok/s15905 ms61K
ChatCRuns well17.7 tok/s5964 ms18K
CodingCRuns well17.7 tok/s10935 ms34K
RAGCRuns well17.7 tok/s19881 ms61K
ReasoningCRuns well17.7 tok/s12923 ms34K

Quantization options

How Meta Llama 3.1 8B Instruct (8B params) fits at each quantization level on Mac mini M4 32GB (23.0 GB usable).

QuantBitsVRAMQualityFit
Q2_K
2
3.1 GB
LowD32
Q3_K_S
3
3.9 GB
LowD33
NVFP4
4
4.5 GB
MediumD34
Q4_K_M
4
4.9 GB
MediumD34
Q5_K_M
5
5.8 GB
HighD35
Q6_K
6
6.6 GB
HighD36
Q8_0
8
8.6 GB
Very HighD38
F16Best for your GPU
16
16.4 GB
MaximumC45

Get started

Upgrade options

Hardware that runs Meta Llama 3.1 8B Instruct well

AMDRX 7900 XTX 24GBBudget pick
C141.6 tok/s decode

~$999 MSRP

NVIDIARTX 3090 24GBBest value
C134.3 tok/s decode

~$1,499 MSRP

AppleMacBook Pro M4 Max 36GBApple upgrade
C52.9 tok/s decode

~$2,499 MSRP

NVIDIANVIDIA A10 24GBBiggest leap
C95.9 tok/s decode

 

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