willitrun·ai

Can Meta Llama 3.1 8B Instruct run on MacBook Pro M4 Pro 24GB?

YES — Runs Great

C51Usable
Estimated — low-sample bucket· few comparable runs

Meta Llama 3.1 8B Instruct needs ~9.3 GB VRAM. MacBook Pro M4 Pro 24GB has 17.3 GB. With Q4_K_M quantization, expect ~40 tok/s.

Runtime: llama.cppCapacity: RoomyBandwidth: LowStack: StandardBottleneck: Balanced
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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

Q4_K_M (Medium quality) 9.3 GB, 39.6 tok/s, Runs well
9.3 GB required17.3 GB available
54% VRAM used

Fit status

Runs well

Decode

39.6 tok/s

TTFT

4885 ms

Safe context

152K

Memory

9.3 GB / 17.3 GB

Memory breakdown

Weights4.9 GB
KV Cache0.9 GB
Runtime0.9 GB
Headroom2.6 GB

See how fast it feels

See how fast it feelsMeta Llama 3.1 8B Instruct on MacBook Pro M4 Pro 24GB
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: 39.6 tok/s decode · 4.9s TTFT (warm) · 99 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

WorkloadGradeFitDecodeTTFTContext
ChatCRuns well39.6 tok/s2665 ms152K
CodingCRuns well39.6 tok/s4885 ms152K
Agentic CodingCRuns well39.6 tok/s7106 ms152K
ReasoningCRuns well39.6 tok/s5773 ms152K
RAGCRuns well39.6 tok/s8882 ms152K

Inference speed

Meta Llama 3.1 8B Instruct inference speed — tokens per second by GPU & Mac

Estimated decode speed (tokens/sec) for Meta Llama 3.1 8B Instruct at Q4_K_M across popular GPUs and Apple Silicon, using the fastest local runtime per device. Fastest is RTX 5090 32GB at ~112 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 / MacMemoryQuantSpeed (tok/s)Fits?
NVIDIARTX 5090 32GB
32 GBQ4_K_M112.0Fits
NVIDIARTX 4090 24GB
24 GBQ4_K_M112.0Fits
NVIDIARTX 4080 Super 16GB
16 GBQ4_K_M112.0Fits
NVIDIARTX 3090 24GB
24 GBQ4_K_M112.0Fits
RX 7900 XTX 24GB
24 GBQ4_K_M112.0Fits
Mac Studio M3 Ultra 256GB
256 GBQ4_K_M112.0Fits
Mac Studio M2 Ultra 128GB
128 GBQ4_K_M95.1Fits
Mac Studio M1 Ultra 128GB
128 GBQ4_K_M90.2Fits
NVIDIARTX 4070 12GB
12 GBQ4_K_M77.5Fits
MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB
128 GBQ4_K_M76.8Fits
MacBook Pro M4 Max 64GB
64 GBQ4_K_M76.8Fits
MacBook Pro M3 Max 64GB
64 GBQ4_K_M49.2Fits
NVIDIARTX 3060 12GB
12 GBQ4_K_M48.7Fits
MacBook Pro M1 Max 64GB
64 GBQ4_K_M45.1Fits
NVIDIARTX 4060 8GB
8 GBQ4_K_M40.7Offloads
MacBook Pro M4 Pro 48GB
48 GBQ4_K_M39.6Fits

Estimates for single-stream decoding at Q4_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 Meta Llama 3.1 8B Instruct (8B params) fits at each quantization level on MacBook Pro M4 Pro 24GB (17.3 GB usable).

QuantBitsVRAMQualityFit
Q2_K
2
3.1 GB
LowC47
Q3_K_S
3
3.9 GB
LowC47
NVFP4
4
4.5 GB
MediumC48
Q4_K_M
4
4.9 GB
MediumC48
Q5_K_M
5
5.8 GB
HighC49
Q6_K
6
6.6 GB
HighC50
Q8_0Best for your GPU
8
8.6 GB
Very HighC52
F16
16
16.4 GB
MaximumF0

Get started

Copy-paste commands to run Meta Llama 3.1 8B Instruct on your machine.

Run

lms load hf-maziyarpanahi--meta-llama-3-1-8b-instruct-gguf && lms server start

升级选项

能流畅运行 Meta Llama 3.1 8B Instruct 的硬件

Frequently asked questions

Can MacBook Pro M4 Pro 24GB run Meta Llama 3.1 8B Instruct?

Yes, MacBook Pro M4 Pro 24GB can run Meta Llama 3.1 8B Instruct with a C grade (Runs well). Expected decode speed: 39.6 tok/s.

How much VRAM does Meta Llama 3.1 8B Instruct need?

Meta Llama 3.1 8B Instruct (8B parameters) requires approximately 9.3 GB of memory with Q4_K_M quantization.

What is the best quantization for Meta Llama 3.1 8B Instruct?

The recommended quantization for Meta Llama 3.1 8B Instruct is Q4_K_M, which balances quality and memory efficiency.

What speed will Meta Llama 3.1 8B Instruct run at on MacBook Pro M4 Pro 24GB?

On MacBook Pro M4 Pro 24GB, Meta Llama 3.1 8B Instruct achieves approximately 39.6 tokens per second decode speed with a time-to-first-token of 4885ms using Q4_K_M quantization.

Can MacBook Pro M4 Pro 24GB run Meta Llama 3.1 8B Instruct for coding?

For coding workloads, Meta Llama 3.1 8B Instruct on MacBook Pro M4 Pro 24GB receives a C grade with 39.6 tok/s and 152K context.

What context window can Meta Llama 3.1 8B Instruct use on MacBook Pro M4 Pro 24GB?

On MacBook Pro M4 Pro 24GB, Meta Llama 3.1 8B Instruct can safely use up to 152K tokens of context. The model's official context limit is —, but available memory constrains the safe maximum.

Is unified memory on MacBook Pro M4 Pro 24GB as fast as VRAM for Meta Llama 3.1 8B Instruct?

Not always. MacBook Pro M4 Pro 24GB 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 MacBook Pro M4 Pro 24GBSee all hardware for Meta Llama 3.1 8B Instruct
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