Can I run it?
Can I run granite 4.2 8b on Apple M4?
Tight fit
Tight fit fully in unified memory on your Apple M4 at Q8_0, 8K context, about 6.2–8.4 tok/s. Weights 8.70 GB plus 1.25 GB of KV cache — 10.3 GB of 11.0 GB usable.
Best quantQ8_0
Working context8K
Max that fits8K
Speed6.2–8.4 tok/s
Weights8.70 GB
KV cache1.25 GB
Total10.3 GB
Usable11.0 GB
granite 4.2 8b details · Apple M4 page · How this estimate is made
Run commands
llama.cpp
llama-server -hf ibm-granite/granite-4.2-8b-GGUF:Q8_0 -c 8192 -ngl 40
No matching name in the Ollama library snapshot.
LM Studio
lms get ibm-granite/granite-4.2-8b-GGUF # Then load quant Q8_0
Assumptions
- Estimate, not a benchmark. Decode speed uses a memory-bandwidth model at 55–75% of peak.
- KV cache is FP16. Engine overhead assumes llama.cpp (0.3 GB + 1% of the weights). Ollama is closer to 0.9 GB + 3%, LM Studio closer to 1 GB + 3%.
- Q8_0 size is the real GGUF file size from Hugging Face.
- Unified memory uses 75% for the GPU by default, and always leaves about 5 GB for the OS.
- Speed is quoted at 8K context, not at the maximum context that still fits.
Larger models that also fit
- Can I run Qwen3.8 27B on Apple M4? — Tight fit, UD-Q2_K_XL, 6.4–8.7 tok/s
- Can I run gemma 4 12b it on Apple M4? — Tight fit, Q6_K, 5.1–6.9 tok/s
- Can I run Qwen3.5 9B on Apple M4? — Tight fit, Q8_0, 6.7–9.2 tok/s
Updated 2026-10-24. Profile on this page is the device default.