Zephyr 7B Beta needs ~20.9 GB VRAM. MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB has 92.2 GB. With Q4_K_M quantization, expect ~94 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
94.4 tok/s
TTFT
2051 ms
Safe context
33K
Memory
20.9 GB / 92.2 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 | 94.4 tok/s | 1119 ms | 33K |
| Coding | C | Runs well | 94.4 tok/s | 2051 ms | 33K |
| Agentic Coding | C | Runs well | 94.4 tok/s | 2983 ms | 33K |
| Reasoning | C | Runs well | 94.4 tok/s | 2424 ms | 33K |
| RAG | C | Runs well | 94.4 tok/s | 3729 ms | 33K |
How Zephyr 7B Beta (7B params) fits at each quantization level on MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB (92.2 GB usable).
| Quant | Bits | VRAM | Quality | Fit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Q2_K | 2 | 2.7 GB | Low | D40 |
Q3_K_S | 3 | 3.4 GB | Low | D40 |
NVFP4 | 4 |
Copy-paste commands to run Zephyr 7B Beta on your machine.
Run
ollama run zephyrYes, MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB can run Zephyr 7B Beta with a C grade (Runs well). Expected decode speed: 94.4 tok/s.
Zephyr 7B Beta (7B parameters) requires approximately 20.9 GB of memory with Q4_K_M quantization.
The recommended quantization for Zephyr 7B Beta is Q4_K_M, which balances quality and memory efficiency.
On MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB, Zephyr 7B Beta achieves approximately 94.4 tokens per second decode speed with a time-to-first-token of 2051ms using Q4_K_M quantization.
For coding workloads, Zephyr 7B Beta on MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB receives a C grade with 94.4 tok/s and 33K context.
On MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB, Zephyr 7B Beta can safely use up to 33K tokens of context. The model's official context limit is 33K, 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/zephyr-7b-beta-on-m4-max-128gb" width="400" height="180" frameborder="0" style="border:none;border-radius:12px;overflow:hidden;" title="Will It Run AI — fit result"></iframe>
Preview:
3.9 GB |
| Medium |
| D40 |
Q4_K_M | 4 | 4.3 GB | Medium | D40 |
Q5_K_M | 5 | 5.0 GB | High | D40 |
Q6_K | 6 | 5.7 GB | High | D40 |
Q8_0 | 8 | 7.5 GB | Very High | D40 |
F16Best for your GPU | 16 | 14.3 GB | Maximum | C41 |
Not always. MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB 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.