Nous Dolphin 13B needs ~26.2 GB VRAM. Mac mini M4 32GB has 23.0 GB. With Q5_K_M quantization, expect ~7 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
3.2 GB over capacity — needs offload or smaller quantization
Fit status
Very compromised (needs ~1.1 GB host RAM)
Decode
6.8 tok/s
TTFT
28672 ms
Safe context
12K
Memory
26.2 GB / 23.0 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 1.1 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 | 8.3 tok/s | 12745 ms | 12K |
| Coding | B | Very compromised (needs ~1.1 GB host RAM) | 6.8 tok/s | 28672 ms | 12K |
| Agentic Coding | F | Too heavy | 4.3 tok/s | 65473 ms | 12K |
| Reasoning | B | Very compromised (needs ~1.1 GB host RAM) | 6.8 tok/s | 33885 ms | 12K |
| RAG | F | Too heavy | 4.3 tok/s | 81841 ms |
How Nous Dolphin 13B (13B params) fits at each quantization level on Mac mini M4 32GB (23.0 GB usable).
| Quant | Bits | VRAM | Quality | Fit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Q2_K | 2 | 5.1 GB | Low | B66 |
Q3_K_S | 3 | 6.4 GB | Low | B67 |
NVFP4 | 4 |
Copy-paste commands to run Nous Dolphin 13B on your machine.
Run
docker run --rm -it ghcr.io/ggerganov/llama.cpp:full \
--hf-repo "nousresearch/Nous-Dolphin-13B" \
--hf-file "Nous-Dolphin-13B-Q5_K_M.gguf" \
-c 4096 -ngl 99Upgrade options
Removes host-memory offload, which is usually the single biggest latency and throughput win.
Adds memory headroom for longer context windows and future model growth.
~$1,099 MSRP
Removes host-memory offload, which is usually the single biggest latency and throughput win.
Raises estimated decode speed by about 197%.
~$1,599 MSRP
Removes host-memory offload, which is usually the single biggest latency and throughput win.
Raises estimated decode speed by about 644%.
~$3,999 MSRP
Yes, Mac mini M4 32GB can run Nous Dolphin 13B with a B grade (Very compromised (needs ~1.1 GB host RAM)). Expected decode speed: 6.8 tok/s.
Nous Dolphin 13B (13B parameters) requires approximately 26.2 GB of memory with Q5_K_M quantization.
The recommended quantization for Nous Dolphin 13B is Q5_K_M, which balances quality and memory efficiency.
On Mac mini M4 32GB, Nous Dolphin 13B achieves approximately 6.8 tokens per second decode speed with a time-to-first-token of 28672ms using Q5_K_M quantization.
For coding workloads, Nous Dolphin 13B on Mac mini M4 32GB receives a B grade with 6.8 tok/s and 12K context.
On Mac mini M4 32GB, Nous Dolphin 13B can safely use up to 12K tokens of context. The model's official context limit is 16K, 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/nous-dolphin-13b-on-m4-mini-32gb" width="400" height="180" frameborder="0" style="border:none;border-radius:12px;overflow:hidden;" title="Will It Run AI — fit result"></iframe>
Preview:
| 12K |
7.3 GB |
| Medium |
| B68 |
Q4_K_M | 4 | 7.9 GB | Medium | B68 |
Q5_K_M | 5 | 9.4 GB | High | B69 |
Q6_K | 6 | 10.7 GB | High | A70 |
Q8_0Best for your GPU | 8 | 13.9 GB | Very High | A71 |
F16 | 16 | 26.7 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 32GB 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.