Can the Apple M5 Ultra (256 GB) run FLUX.2 [dev]?

Yes, but slowly

Slow. At FP16 it needs about 116 GB of 192 GB usable and takes about 2.1 min per image.

Best precision: FP16
Memory mode: Everything on GPU
Time per image: 2.1 min
Output: 1024×1024, 28 steps

Best app to run it on the Apple M5 Ultra (256 GB)

On macOS

Draw Things

Desktop app · runs on Draw Things (Metal FlashAttention)

Native Mac app with its own fast Metal engine and quantized downloads.

Open FLUX.2 [dev] in Draw Things

ComfyUI Runs this model with built-in or popular custom nodes; GGUF files load with ComfyUI-GGUF.
Invoke

How we choose: the files published for this model, your operating system and GPU, whether it fits fully in memory, and published speed tests (MLX vs llama.cpp on Apple silicon, vLLM vs llama.cpp vs Ollama on NVIDIA). Details.

Download FLUX.2 [dev]

Quantized files · GGUF for ComfyUI

Smaller GGUF versions for ComfyUI (with the ComfyUI-GGUF node). No sign-in needed; the model’s license still applies.

huggingface.co/unsloth/FLUX.2-dev-GGUF (opens in a new tab)

Original weights · Hugging Face

Full-precision files from Black Forest Labs, for fine-tuning, vLLM, Transformers, Diffusers or ComfyUI.

huggingface.co/black-forest-labs/FLUX.2-dev (opens in a new tab)

Free Hugging Face account needed: accept the license on the model page and the download starts right away.

Official repo · GitHub

Reference code, inference scripts and docs from Black Forest Labs. The weights themselves download from Hugging Face.

github.com/black-forest-labs/flux2 (opens in a new tab)

git clone https://github.com/black-forest-labs/flux2

Links checked 2 days ago against Hugging Face, Ollama and GitHub.

How it’s rated

Quality 92Excellent quality (A+) · 92 of 100: how capable the model is at FP16, whatever it runs on. Match score 84/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.: How capable the model itself is at FP16, from its editorial quality tier scaled by the quantization or precision. It’s the same on any hardware that runs this variant. Scale: A+ 85+ · A 70+ · B 55+ · C 40+ · D under 40.
Runs Slow: How well it runs on the Apple M5 Ultra (256 GB): speed, capped by how well it fits in memory. Runs great: 30+ tokens/s (or near the image, video or decision speed target) · Runs well: 10+ tokens/s · Slow: 3+ tokens/s · Very slow: under 3 · Won’t run: doesn’t fit even with offload. A tight fit or RAM offload caps it at Runs well; heavy offload caps it at Slow.

Match score

To order lists, each result also gets a match score out of 100 from four parts. It favors the most capable model that still runs well.

Model qualityEditorial quality tier of the model, scaled by the quantization or precision used.	41.4 / 45
Memory fitFull marks when the model fits in the share of unified memory the GPU can use; fewer when it goes past that limit.	25.0 / 25
SpeedGeneration speed against a 40 tokens/s target for LLMs, or render time against a target for image and video.	4.3 / 15
Memory useRewards using the memory you have, so a bigger, better variant beats a tiny one that leaves most memory idle.	13.9 / 15
Match score	84.6 / 100

The match score orders results; it is not shown as a grade. Quality and Runs are the two ratings in the tables.

Every precision on the Apple M5 Ultra (256 GB)

Quant	Memory needed	Available	Speed	Memory mode	Runs	Quality	Download
`FP16`	116 GB	192 GB	2.1 min	Everything on GPU	Slow	92Excellent quality (A+) · 92 of 100: how capable the model is at FP16, whatever it runs on. Match score 84/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	Original weights (opens in a new tab)
`FP8`	59.7 GB	192 GB	1.8 min	Everything on GPU	Slow	90Excellent quality (A+) · 90 of 100: how capable the model is at FP8, whatever it runs on. Match score 77/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	Original weights (opens in a new tab)
`Q8 GGUF`	61.9 GB	192 GB	2.4 min	Everything on GPU	Very slow	91Excellent quality (A+) · 91 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8 GGUF, whatever it runs on. Match score 77/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF (opens in a new tab)
`Q4 GGUF`	46.8 GB	192 GB	2.5 min	Everything on GPU	Very slow	85Excellent quality (A+) · 85 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4 GGUF, whatever it runs on. Match score 73/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF (opens in a new tab)

Other hardware that runs it

90Excellent quality (A+) · 90 of 100: how capable the model is at FP8, whatever it runs on. Match score 89/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell FP8 · 24 s · Runs well
85Excellent quality (A+) · 85 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4 GGUF, whatever it runs on. Match score 81/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Q4 GGUF · 38 s · Runs well (encoder in RAM)
92Excellent quality (A+) · 92 of 100: how capable the model is at FP16, whatever it runs on. Match score 91/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. NVIDIA B200 FP16 · 22 s · Runs well
92Excellent quality (A+) · 92 of 100: how capable the model is at FP16, whatever it runs on. Match score 90/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. NVIDIA H200 141GB SXM FP16 · 25 s · Runs well
90Excellent quality (A+) · 90 of 100: how capable the model is at FP8, whatever it runs on. Match score 90/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. NVIDIA H100 80GB SXM FP8 · 23 s · Runs well
90Excellent quality (A+) · 90 of 100: how capable the model is at FP8, whatever it runs on. Match score 90/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. NVIDIA H800 80GB SXM FP8 · 23 s · Runs well

Quick answers

How much memory does FLUX.2 [dev] need on the M5 Ultra 256GB?

At FP16 it needs about 116 GB. The M5 Ultra 256GB has 192 GB usable.

How long does FLUX.2 [dev] take on the M5 Ultra 256GB?

About 2.1 min per image at FP16 and default settings, an estimate scaled from a reference timing by this hardware’s compute speed.

Estimates come from published hardware specs and our open formulas, not from running the model on your machine. Real speed varies with runtime, drivers and settings. Numbers marked “Measured” come from a linked benchmark.