What LLMs Can the Apple M1 Max 64GB Run?
The Apple M1 Max 64GB has 64 GB of unified memory (about 48.0 GB usable by the GPU) and 400 GB/s of bandwidth. It runs 46 of 58 models fully at Q4_K_M with 8K context, up to Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B, and generates about 47 tokens/s on an 8B model.
46 of 58 models fit
Apple M1 Max 64GB (48.0 GB GPU-usable) at Q4_K_M with 8K context. Largest that fits fully: Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B.
| Model | Needs | Status | Speed | Best quant that fits |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Qwen 2.5 72B | 44.5 GB | Fits | ~5.7 tok/s | Q4_K_M |
| Llama 3.3 70B | 43.2 GB | Fits | ~5.9 tok/s | Q4_K_M |
| DeepSeek R1 Distill Llama 70B | 43.2 GB | Fits | ~5.9 tok/s | Q4_K_M |
| Mixtral 8x7B | 28.0 GB | Fits | ~28 tok/s | Q6_K |
| Qwen 2.5 32B | 21.4 GB | Fits | ~12 tok/s | Q8_0 |
| Qwen 2.5 Coder 32B | 21.4 GB | Fits | ~12 tok/s | Q8_0 |
| DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 32B | 21.4 GB | Fits | ~12 tok/s | Q8_0 |
| Qwen 3 32B | 21.4 GB | Fits | ~12 tok/s | Q8_0 |
| Qwen 3.5 35B-A3B | 21.0 GB | Fits | ~86 tok/s | Q8_0 |
| Qwen 3.6 35B-A3B | 21.0 GB | Fits | ~86 tok/s | Q8_0 |
| Gemma 4 31B | 19.8 GB | Fits | ~13 tok/s | Q8_0 |
| Qwen 3 30B-A3B | 18.8 GB | Fits | ~71 tok/s | Q8_0 |
| Qwen3-Coder 30B-A3B | 18.8 GB | Fits | ~71 tok/s | Q8_0 |
| Gemma 3 27B | 17.6 GB | Fits | ~15 tok/s | Q8_0 |
| Qwen 3.5 27B | 16.9 GB | Fits | ~15 tok/s | Q8_0 |
| Qwen 3.6 27B | 16.9 GB | Fits | ~15 tok/s | Q8_0 |
| Qwen 3.8 27B | 16.9 GB | Fits | ~15 tok/s | Q8_0 |
| Mistral Small 3.1 24B | 15.6 GB | Fits | ~17 tok/s | Q8_0 |
| Gemma 4 26B-A4B | 15.6 GB | Fits | ~77 tok/s | Q8_0 |
| gpt-oss-20b | 12.9 GB | Fits | ~89 tok/s | MXFP4 (official) |
| Qwen 2.5 14B | 10.7 GB | Fits | ~26 tok/s | FP16 / BF16 |
| DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 14B | 10.7 GB | Fits | ~26 tok/s | FP16 / BF16 |
| Phi-4 14B | 10.6 GB | Fits | ~26 tok/s | FP16 / BF16 |
| Qwen 3 14B | 10.5 GB | Fits | ~27 tok/s | FP16 / BF16 |
| Ministral 3 14B | 9.7 GB | Fits | ~29 tok/s | FP16 / BF16 |
| Mistral Nemo 12B | 9.0 GB | Fits | ~32 tok/s | FP16 / BF16 |
| Gemma 3 12B | 8.8 GB | Fits | ~32 tok/s | FP16 / BF16 |
| Ministral 3 8B | 6.7 GB | Fits | ~45 tok/s | FP16 / BF16 |
| Qwen 3 8B | 6.6 GB | Fits | ~46 tok/s | FP16 / BF16 |
| Qwen 3.5 9B | 6.4 GB | Fits | ~46 tok/s | FP16 / BF16 |
| Llama 3.1 8B | 6.3 GB | Fits | ~47 tok/s | FP16 / BF16 |
| DeepSeek R1 Distill Llama 8B | 6.3 GB | Fits | ~47 tok/s | FP16 / BF16 |
| Mistral 7B v0.3 | 5.7 GB | Fits | ~52 tok/s | FP16 / BF16 |
| Gemma 4 E4B | 5.7 GB | Fits | ~52 tok/s | FP16 / BF16 |
| Qwen 2.5 7B | 5.6 GB | Fits | ~53 tok/s | FP16 / BF16 |
| DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 7B | 5.6 GB | Fits | ~53 tok/s | FP16 / BF16 |
| Qwen 3 4B | 4.2 GB | Fits | ~83 tok/s | FP16 / BF16 |
| Phi-4 Mini | 4.1 GB | Fits | ~88 tok/s | FP16 / BF16 |
| Gemma 4 E2B | 4.0 GB | Fits | ~81 tok/s | FP16 / BF16 |
| Gemma 3 4B | 3.7 GB | Fits | ~90 tok/s | FP16 / BF16 |
| Qwen 3.5 4B | 3.7 GB | Fits | ~92 tok/s | FP16 / BF16 |
| Ministral 3 3B | 3.5 GB | Fits | ~101 tok/s | FP16 / BF16 |
| Llama 3.2 3B | 3.5 GB | Fits | ~104 tok/s | FP16 / BF16 |
| Llama 3.2 1B | 1.7 GB | Fits | ~280 tok/s | FP16 / BF16 |
| Gemma 3 1B | 1.6 GB | Fits | ~370 tok/s | FP16 / BF16 |
| Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B | 46.3 GB | Tight fit | ~80 tok/s | IQ4_XS |
| Kimi K2.6 | 566 GB | Too small | – | – |
| DeepSeek R1 671B | 380 GB | Too small | – | – |
| Llama 3.1 405B | 234 GB | Too small | – | – |
| Qwen 3.5 397B-A17B | 226 GB | Too small | – | – |
| DeepSeek V4 Flash | 161 GB | Too small | – | – |
| Qwen 3 235B-A22B | 135 GB | Too small | – | – |
| MiniMax-M2 | 133 GB | Too small | – | – |
| Qwen 3.5 122B-A10B | 70.2 GB | Too small | – | Q2_K |
| Mistral Small 4 119B | 68.2 GB | Too small | – | Q2_K |
| gpt-oss-120b | 67.2 GB | Too small | – | Q2_K |
| Llama 4 Scout | 64.0 GB | Too small | – | Q2_K |
| GLM-4.5-Air | 62.1 GB | Too small | – | Q2_K |
Apple M1 Max 64GB for local AI
A popular used choice for local LLMs. About 48 GB is GPU-usable by default, enough for 70B models at Q4_K_M with a short context, at roughly three quarters of an M4 Max's speed.
Among the 6 devices we track with about 48 GB of usable memory, the Apple M1 Max 64GB ranks 5 of 6 for text-generation speed, because generation speed follows memory bandwidth. Others in the same class: RTX 6000 Ada 48GB, L40S 48GB, RTX A6000 48GB, Apple M4 Max 64GB. They all hold the same models; the faster ones simply answer sooner.
Our picks for the Apple M1 Max 64GB
The model we would run first for each job, chosen from our recommendations by what fits fully with an 8K context. "Best quant" is the highest quality that fits; "max context" is at Q4_K_M or the native format.
| Task | Model | Best quant | Max context | Speed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Best all-rounder | Llama 3.3 70B | Q4_K_M | 14K | ~5.9 tok/s |
| Coding | Qwen 3.6 27B | Q8_0 | 256K | ~15 tok/s |
| Fastest replies | Qwen 3.6 35B-A3B | Q8_0 | 256K | ~86 tok/s |
| Long documents (64K+) | Qwen 3.8 27B | Q8_0 | 256K | ~15 tok/s |
| Images in, text out | Gemma 4 31B | Q8_0 | 256K | ~13 tok/s |
| Image generation | FLUX.2 [dev] | FP8 | – | – |
| Spec | Value |
|---|---|
| Memory | 64 GB unified (48.0 GB GPU-usable by default) |
| Memory bandwidth | 400 GB/s |
| Architecture | Apple Silicon |
| Released | 2021-10 |
| Llama 3.1 8B Q4_K_M speed | ~47 tok/s |
| Largest model that fits | Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B |
Image and video models on the Apple M1 Max 64GB
Peak VRAM with model swapping (ComfyUI default on smaller cards).
| Model | FP8 | FP8 fit | GGUF Q4 | Q4 fit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stable Diffusion 1.5 | 1.8 GB | Fits | 1.7 GB | Fits |
| SDXL 1.0 | 4.1 GB | Fits | 4.1 GB | Fits |
| Stable Diffusion 3.5 Medium | 6.4 GB | Fits | 6.4 GB | Fits |
| Stable Diffusion 3.5 Large | 8.6 GB | Fits | 6.4 GB | Fits |
| FLUX.1 [dev] | 12.1 GB | Fits | 7.3 GB | Fits |
| FLUX.1 [schnell] | 12.1 GB | Fits | 7.3 GB | Fits |
| Qwen-Image | 20.4 GB | Fits | 12.3 GB | Fits |
| Wan 2.2 A14B (T2V / I2V) | 18.8 GB | Fits | 13.2 GB | Fits |
| Wan 2.2 TI2V 5B | 8.0 GB | Fits | 6.5 GB | Fits |
| HunyuanVideo | 18.3 GB | Fits | 13.1 GB | Fits |
| FLUX.1 Kontext [dev] | 12.3 GB | Fits | 7.5 GB | Fits |
| FLUX.2 [dev] | 31.0 GB | Fits | 23.6 GB | Fits |
| Z-Image Turbo | 6.8 GB | Fits | 4.9 GB | Fits |
| Qwen-Image-Edit 2509 | 20.5 GB | Fits | 12.4 GB | Fits |
| LTX-2 | 19.2 GB | Fits | 12.6 GB | Fits |
Upgrade path
The next step up is the Apple M3 Max 128GB with 128 GB.
Apple M1 Max 64GB for LLMs: common questions
Can the Apple M1 Max 64GB run Llama 3.3 70B?
Yes. Llama 3.3 70B needs about 43.2 GB at Q4_K_M with 8K context, and the best quality that fits is Q4_K_M.
Can the Apple M1 Max 64GB run Qwen 3 32B?
Yes. Qwen 3 32B needs about 21.4 GB at Q4_K_M with 8K context, and the best quality that fits is Q8_0.
Can the Apple M1 Max 64GB run Qwen 3 14B?
Yes. Qwen 3 14B needs about 10.5 GB at Q4_K_M with 8K context, and the best quality that fits is FP16 / BF16.
How fast is the Apple M1 Max 64GB for LLMs?
About 47 tokens per second for an 8B model at Q4_K_M, based on its 400 GB/s memory bandwidth. Larger models scale down roughly in proportion to their size.
How much of the 64 GB can the GPU use?
About 48.0 GB by default. You can raise it with sudo sysctl iogpu.wired_limit_mb=<MB> (resets on reboot), leaving at least 8 GB for macOS.