Can Nous Dolphin 13B run on Mac mini M4 64GB?

YES — Runs Great

B69Good

Estimated from fit model

Nous Dolphin 13B needs ~29.7 GB VRAM. Mac mini M4 64GB has 46.1 GB. With Q5_K_M quantization, expect ~8 tok/s.

Runtime: OllamaCapacity: RoomyBandwidth: Very lowStack: BasicBottleneck: Memory bandwidth

Operating mode

Choose the run profile you care about

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.

Capabilities:

Select quantization to explore

Q5_K_M (High quality) — 29.7 GB, 8.3 tok/s, Runs well

29.7 GB required46.1 GB available

64% VRAM used

Fit status

Runs well

Decode

8.3 tok/s

TTFT

23366 ms

Safe context

16K

Memory

29.7 GB / 46.1 GB

Memory breakdown

Weights9.4 GB

KV Cache12.2 GB

Runtime1.2 GB

Headroom6.9 GB

See how fast it feels

See how fast it feelsNous Dolphin 13B on Mac mini M4 64GB
1st promptCold start — includes initialization
>What is local AI inference?
Local AI inference means running an AI language model directly on your own hardware — your laptop, desktop, or server — instead of sending requests to a remote cloud API.

When you run inference locally the model weights are loaded into your GPU or unified memory. Each token you generate requires reading those weights from memory, so memory bandwidth is the main bottleneck for decode speed.

Key benefits of running locally:
  - Full privacy: your prompts never leave your machine
  - No per-token cost or rate limits
  - Works offline once the model is downloaded
  - Latency depends only on your hardware
2nd promptWarm — model ready, no init overhead
>How much VRAM do I need?
It depends on the model size and quantization level. A rough rule of thumb:

  Model size     Q4 (4-bit)    Q8 (8-bit)    FP16
  7B params      ~4.3 GB       ~7.5 GB       ~14 GB
  13B params     ~7.9 GB       ~13.9 GB      ~26 GB
  70B params     ~42.7 GB      ~74.9 GB      ~140 GB

Most people use 4-bit quantization (Q4_K_M) which gives 90-95% of full quality at a fraction of the memory. A 24 GB GPU can comfortably run most 7B-13B models.
Estimated: 8.3 tok/s decode · 23.4s TTFT (warm) · 21 tok/s prefill

What limits this setup

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.

Best improvement path

Performance by workload

Workload	Grade	Fit	Decode	TTFT	Context
Chat	B	Runs well	8.3 tok/s	12745 ms	16K
Coding	B	Runs well	8.3 tok/s	23366 ms	16K
Agentic Coding	B	Tight fit	8.3 tok/s	33987 ms	16K
Reasoning	B	Runs well	8.3 tok/s	27614 ms	16K
RAG	B	Tight fit	8.3 tok/s	42484 ms	16K

Inference speed

Nous Dolphin 13B inference speed — tokens per second by GPU & Mac

Estimated decode speed (tokens/sec) for Nous Dolphin 13B at Q5_K_M across popular GPUs and Apple Silicon, using the fastest local runtime per device. Fastest is RTX 5090 32GB at ~131 tok/s. Speed is memory-bandwidth bound, so cards that fit the whole model in VRAM run far faster than ones that offload to system RAM.

GPU / Mac	Memory	Quant	Speed (tok/s)	Fits?
RTX 5090 32GB	32 GB	Q5_K_M	130.8	Fits
Mac Studio M3 Ultra 256GB	256 GB	Q5_K_M	60.7	Fits
RTX 4090 24GB	24 GB	Q5_K_M	56.7	Offloads
RX 7900 XTX 24GB	24 GB	Q5_K_M	51.1	Offloads
Mac Studio M2 Ultra 128GB	128 GB	Q5_K_M	50.6	Fits
RTX 3090 24GB	24 GB	Q5_K_M	48.5	Offloads
Mac Studio M1 Ultra 128GB	128 GB	Q5_K_M	47.9	Fits
MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB	128 GB	Q5_K_M	33.0	Fits
MacBook Pro M4 Max 64GB	64 GB	Q5_K_M	33.0	Fits
MacBook Pro M3 Max 64GB	64 GB	Q5_K_M	26.2	Fits
MacBook Pro M1 Max 64GB	64 GB	Q5_K_M	24.0	Fits
RTX 4080 Super 16GB	16 GB	Q5_K_M	20.6	Too big
MacBook Pro M4 Pro 48GB	48 GB	Q5_K_M	20.2	Fits
RTX 4070 12GB	12 GB	Q5_K_M	7.2	Too big
RTX 3060 12GB	12 GB	Q5_K_M	4.5	Too big
RTX 4060 8GB	8 GB	Q5_K_M	3.2	Too big

Estimates for single-stream decoding at Q5_K_M; real tokens/sec varies with prompt length, context, batch size, and runtime build. Prompt processing (prefill) is faster than the decode figures shown here.

Quantization options

How Nous Dolphin 13B (13B params) fits at each quantization level on Mac mini M4 64GB (46.1 GB usable).

Quant	Bits	VRAM	Quality	Fit
Q2_K	2	5.1 GB	Low	B63
Q3_K_S	3	6.4 GB	Low	B63
NVFP4	4	7.3 GB	Medium	B63
Q4_K_M	4	7.9 GB	Medium	B63
Q5_K_M	5	9.4 GB	High	B64
Q6_K	6	10.7 GB	High	B64
Q8_0	8	13.9 GB	Very High	B65
F16Best for your GPU	16	26.7 GB	Maximum	B69

Get started

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 99

Opções de upgrade

Hardware que roda bem Nous Dolphin 13B

MacBook Pro M4 Max 96GBOpção econômica

96 GB Unified (+32)546 GB/s (+426)

Raises estimated decode speed by about 298%.33 tok/s decodificação

Raises estimated decode speed by about 298%.

Adds memory headroom for longer context windows and future model growth.

~$2,499 MSRP

Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GBMelhor custo-benefício

96 GB Unified (+32)819 GB/s (+699)

Raises estimated decode speed by about 631%.60.7 tok/s decodificação

Raises estimated decode speed by about 631%.

Adds memory headroom for longer context windows and future model growth.

~$3,999 MSRP

Mac Studio M2 Ultra 128GBUpgrade Apple

128 GB Unified (+64)800 GB/s (+680)

Raises estimated decode speed by about 510%.50.6 tok/s decodificação

Raises estimated decode speed by about 510%.

Adds memory headroom for longer context windows and future model growth.

~$3,999 MSRP

Frequently asked questions

Can Mac mini M4 64GB run Nous Dolphin 13B?

Yes, Mac mini M4 64GB can run Nous Dolphin 13B with a B grade (Runs well). Expected decode speed: 8.3 tok/s.

How much VRAM does Nous Dolphin 13B need?

Nous Dolphin 13B (13B parameters) requires approximately 29.7 GB of memory with Q5_K_M quantization.

What is the best quantization for Nous Dolphin 13B?

The recommended quantization for Nous Dolphin 13B is Q5_K_M, which balances quality and memory efficiency.

What speed will Nous Dolphin 13B run at on Mac mini M4 64GB?

On Mac mini M4 64GB, Nous Dolphin 13B achieves approximately 8.3 tokens per second decode speed with a time-to-first-token of 23366ms using Q5_K_M quantization.

Can Mac mini M4 64GB run Nous Dolphin 13B for coding?

For coding workloads, Nous Dolphin 13B on Mac mini M4 64GB receives a B grade with 8.3 tok/s and 16K context.

What context window can Nous Dolphin 13B use on Mac mini M4 64GB?

On Mac mini M4 64GB, Nous Dolphin 13B can safely use up to 16K tokens of context. The model's official context limit is 16K, but available memory constrains the safe maximum.

Is unified memory on Mac mini M4 64GB as fast as VRAM for Nous Dolphin 13B?

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.

See all results for Mac mini M4 64GB See all hardware for Nous Dolphin 13B

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