MPT-30B-Instruct needs ~53.1 GB VRAM. Mac mini M4 64GB has 46.1 GB. With Q5_K_M quantization, expect ~6 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
7.0 GB over capacity — needs offload or smaller quantization
Fit status
Very compromised (needs ~2.9 GB host RAM)
Decode
5.9 tok/s
TTFT
32916 ms
Safe context
8K
Memory
53.1 GB / 46.1 GB
Offload
10%
It fits through host-memory offload, and offload is the main reason performance drops.
CPU or host-memory offload is active
About 10% of the working set spills out of accelerator memory, which usually hurts latency and sustained decode throughput.
Very little memory headroom
You can run the model, but there is not much room left for longer context, bigger batches, extra apps, or future model updates.
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.
Remove offload with more accelerator memory
Prioritize a GPU or unified-memory tier that fits the whole model natively. Removing offload usually helps more than small compute gains.
Buy headroom, not only minimum fit
A slightly larger memory tier gives you safer context growth and makes the recommendation more future-proof.
Increase host RAM if you keep offloading
This setup may need roughly 2.9 GB of extra host RAM just for the offloaded portion, before OS and other tools.
| Workload | Grade | Fit | Decode | TTFT | Context |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chat | B | Tight fit | 7.3 tok/s | 14379 ms | 8K |
| Coding | B | Very compromised (needs ~2.9 GB host RAM) | 5.9 tok/s | 32916 ms | 8K |
| Agentic Coding | F | Too heavy | 3.8 tok/s | 73576 ms | 8K |
| Reasoning | B | Very compromised (needs ~2.9 GB host RAM) | 5.9 tok/s | 38900 ms | 8K |
| RAG | F | Too heavy | 3.8 tok/s | 91969 ms | 8K |
How MPT-30B-Instruct (30B params) fits at each quantization level on Mac mini M4 64GB (46.1 GB usable).
| Quant | Bits | VRAM | Quality | Fit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Q2_K | 2 | 11.7 GB | Low | B64 |
Q3_K_S | 3 | 14.7 GB | Low | B65 |
NVFP4 | 4 |
Copy-paste commands to run MPT-30B-Instruct on your machine.
Run
docker run --rm -it ghcr.io/ggerganov/llama.cpp:full \
--hf-repo "mosaicml/mpt-30b-instruct" \
--hf-file "mpt-30b-instruct-Q5_K_M.gguf" \
-c 4096 -ngl 99Upgrade options
Removes host-memory offload, which is usually the single biggest latency and throughput win.
Raises estimated decode speed by about 381%.
~$2,499 MSRP
Removes host-memory offload, which is usually the single biggest latency and throughput win.
Raises estimated decode speed by about 92%.
~$2,499 MSRP
Removes host-memory offload, which is usually the single biggest latency and throughput win.
Raises estimated decode speed by about 346%.
~$3,999 MSRP
Yes, Mac mini M4 64GB can run MPT-30B-Instruct with a B grade (Very compromised (needs ~2.9 GB host RAM)). Expected decode speed: 5.9 tok/s.
MPT-30B-Instruct (30B parameters) requires approximately 53.1 GB of memory with Q5_K_M quantization.
The recommended quantization for MPT-30B-Instruct is Q5_K_M, which balances quality and memory efficiency.
On Mac mini M4 64GB, MPT-30B-Instruct achieves approximately 5.9 tokens per second decode speed with a time-to-first-token of 32916ms using Q5_K_M quantization.
For coding workloads, MPT-30B-Instruct on Mac mini M4 64GB receives a B grade with 5.9 tok/s and 8K context.
On Mac mini M4 64GB, MPT-30B-Instruct can safely use up to 8K tokens of context. The model's official context limit is 8K, 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/mpt-30b-instruct-on-m4-mini-64gb" width="400" height="180" frameborder="0" style="border:none;border-radius:12px;overflow:hidden;" title="Will It Run AI — fit result"></iframe>
Preview:
16.8 GB |
| Medium |
| B66 |
Q4_K_M | 4 | 18.3 GB | Medium | B67 |
Q5_K_M | 5 | 21.6 GB | High | B68 |
Q6_K | 6 | 24.6 GB | High | B69 |
Q8_0Best for your GPU | 8 | 32.1 GB | Very High | B68 |
F16 | 16 | 61.5 GB | Maximum | F0 |
Remove offload with more accelerator memory. Prioritize a GPU or unified-memory tier that fits the whole model natively. Removing offload usually helps more than small compute gains.
Not always. Mac mini M4 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.