Yi 1.5 9B Chat needs ~14.4 GB VRAM. MacBook Pro M4 Max 64GB has 46.1 GB. With Q4_K_M quantization, expect ~68 tok/s.
Operating mode
Interactive favors responsiveness, while light API and scale-out lean harder on serving readiness. The fit stays the same, but the recommendation lens changes.
Current mode
Balanced
Balanced for general local use. Keeps the ranking neutral across personal and serving workflows.
Select quantization to explore
Fit status
Runs well
Decode
68.3 tok/s
TTFT
2835 ms
Safe context
497K
Memory
14.4 GB / 46.1 GB
This setup is broadly balanced for this model.
Shared-memory contention still exists
The OS, browser, and inference runtime all compete for the same physical memory pool, so real-world headroom is less forgiving than raw capacity suggests.
| Workload | Grade | Fit | Decode | TTFT | Context |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chat | C | Runs well | 68.3 tok/s | 1546 ms | 497K |
| Coding | C | Runs well | 68.3 tok/s | 2835 ms | 497K |
| Agentic Coding | C | Runs well | 68.3 tok/s | 4123 ms | 497K |
| Reasoning | C | Runs well | 68.3 tok/s | 3350 ms | 497K |
| RAG | C | Runs well | 68.3 tok/s | 5154 ms | 497K |
How Yi 1.5 9B Chat (9B params) fits at each quantization level on MacBook Pro M4 Max 64GB (46.1 GB usable).
| Quant | Bits | VRAM | Quality | Fit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Q2_K | 2 | 3.5 GB | Low | C41 |
Q3_K_S | 3 | 4.4 GB | Low | C42 |
NVFP4 | 4 |
Copy-paste commands to run Yi 1.5 9B Chat on your machine.
Run
lms load hf-bartowski--yi-1-5-9b-chat-gguf && lms server startYes, MacBook Pro M4 Max 64GB can run Yi 1.5 9B Chat with a C grade (Runs well). Expected decode speed: 68.3 tok/s.
Yi 1.5 9B Chat (9B parameters) requires approximately 14.4 GB of memory with Q4_K_M quantization.
The recommended quantization for Yi 1.5 9B Chat is Q4_K_M, which balances quality and memory efficiency.
On MacBook Pro M4 Max 64GB, Yi 1.5 9B Chat achieves approximately 68.3 tokens per second decode speed with a time-to-first-token of 2835ms using Q4_K_M quantization.
For coding workloads, Yi 1.5 9B Chat on MacBook Pro M4 Max 64GB receives a C grade with 68.3 tok/s and 497K context.
On MacBook Pro M4 Max 64GB, Yi 1.5 9B Chat can safely use up to 497K tokens of context. The model's official context limit is —, but available memory constrains the safe maximum.
Paste this snippet into any page to show a live fit card.
<iframe src="https://willitrunai.com/embed/hf-bartowski--yi-1-5-9b-chat-gguf-on-m4-max-64gb" width="400" height="180" frameborder="0" style="border:none;border-radius:12px;overflow:hidden;" title="Will It Run AI — fit result"></iframe>
Preview:
5.0 GB |
| Medium |
| C42 |
Q4_K_M | 4 | 5.5 GB | Medium | C42 |
Q5_K_M | 5 | 6.5 GB | High | C42 |
Q6_K | 6 | 7.4 GB | High | C42 |
Q8_0 | 8 | 9.6 GB | Very High | C43 |
F16Best for your GPU | 16 | 18.5 GB | Maximum | C46 |
Not always. MacBook Pro M4 Max 64GB can often fit larger models thanks to unified memory, but a discrete GPU with dedicated high-bandwidth VRAM may still decode faster once the model fits. For this combination, the important distinction is capacity versus sustained throughput.