Granite 4.0 H Tiny (7B-A1B) on Apple M3 Max (36 GB)

Can the Apple M3 Max (36 GB) run Granite 4.0 H Tiny (7B-A1B)?

Yes, it runs great

Runs great. At F16 it needs about 16.5 GB of 24.1 GB usable, with an estimated speed of 56.1 tok/s.

Best quant: F16
Generation speed: 56.1 tok/s
Prompt processing: 7,626 tok/s
First token (1K prompt): 0.3 s
Largest safe context: 128K

Best app to run it on the Apple M3 Max (36 GB)

On macOS

LM Studio

Desktop app · runs on llama.cpp, MLX · use the MLX build

Runs the MLX build, typically 35–90% faster than GGUF for a model with 1B active parameters on Apple silicon.
Point-and-click: search, download and chat in one window.

Open Granite 4.0 H Tiny (7B-A1B) in LM Studio

MLX LM Runs the MLX build, typically 35–90% faster than GGUF for a model with 1B active parameters on Apple silicon.
Ollama One command with Ollama’s own build of this model.

Want an agent? Granite 4.0 H Tiny (7B-A1B) supports tool use, so you can pair a llama.cpp or MLX LM server with one of these. Apps that run on this computer come first.

Coding agents

Personal assistants

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 Granite 4.0 H Tiny (7B-A1B)

Recommended for the Apple M3 Max (36 GB): F16. Every other quantization has its own download link in the table below.

Quickest · Ollama

One command downloads a ready-to-run version and starts a chat.

Get Ollama at ollama.com/download (opens in a new tab) · model page (opens in a new tab)

ollama run granite4:tiny-h

Quantized files · GGUF

Works in LM Studio, llama.cpp, Jan and Ollama. No sign-in needed.

Download the F16 file (opens in a new tab)

huggingface.co/ibm-granite/granite-4.0-h-tiny-GGUF (opens in a new tab)

ollama run hf.co/ibm-granite/granite-4.0-h-tiny-GGUF:BF16

Original weights · Hugging Face

Full-precision files from IBM, for fine-tuning, vLLM, Transformers.

huggingface.co/ibm-granite/granite-4.0-h-tiny (opens in a new tab)

No sign-in needed.

Official repo · GitHub

Reference code, inference scripts and docs from IBM. The weights themselves download from Hugging Face.

github.com/ibm-granite/granite-4.0-language-models (opens in a new tab)

IBM’s official Granite 4.0 repo.

git clone https://github.com/ibm-granite/granite-4.0-language-models

Links checked 3 days ago against Hugging Face, Ollama and GitHub.

How it’s rated

Quality 44Fair quality (C) · 44 of 100: how capable the model is at F16, whatever it runs on. Match score 74/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.: How capable the model itself is at F16, 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 Runs great: How well it runs on the Apple M3 Max (36 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.	19.8 / 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.	15.0 / 15
Memory useRewards using the memory you have, so a bigger, better variant beats a tiny one that leaves most memory idle.	15.0 / 15
Match score	74.8 / 100

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

Every quantization on the Apple M3 Max (36 GB)

Quant	Memory needed	Available	Speed	Runs	Quality	Download
`Q2_K`	5.4 GB	24.1 GB	198 tok/s	Runs great	30Basic quality (D) · 30 of 100: how capable the model is at Q2_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 59/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF (opens in a new tab)
`Q3_K_M`	6.0 GB	24.1 GB	176 tok/s	Runs great	36Basic quality (D) · 36 of 100: how capable the model is at Q3_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 62/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF (opens in a new tab)
`Q4_K_M`	6.8 GB	24.1 GB	153 tok/s	Runs great	41Fair quality (C) · 41 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 65/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF (opens in a new tab)
`Q5_K_M`	7.5 GB	24.1 GB	137 tok/s	Runs great	42Fair quality (C) · 42 of 100: how capable the model is at Q5_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 66/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF (opens in a new tab)
`Q6_K`	8.3 GB	24.1 GB	123 tok/s	Runs great	43Fair quality (C) · 43 of 100: how capable the model is at Q6_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 67/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF (opens in a new tab)
`Q8_0`	10.0 GB	24.1 GB	100 tok/s	Runs great	44Fair quality (C) · 44 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 69/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF (opens in a new tab)
`F16`	16.5 GB	24.1 GB	56.1 tok/s	Runs great	44Fair quality (C) · 44 of 100: how capable the model is at F16, whatever it runs on. Match score 74/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF (opens in a new tab) Original weights (opens in a new tab)

Memory figures assume 8K of context. Longer conversations or documents grow the KV cache.

Other hardware that runs it

44Fair quality (C) · 44 of 100: how capable the model is at F16, whatever it runs on. Match score 74/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX F16 · 117 tok/s · Runs great
44Fair quality (C) · 44 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 74/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. Apple M4 (16 GB) Q8_0 · 51.8 tok/s · Runs great
44Fair quality (C) · 44 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 74/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. Intel Arc B580 Q8_0 · 119 tok/s · Runs great
44Fair quality (C) · 44 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 74/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12GB Q8_0 · 121 tok/s · Runs great
44Fair quality (C) · 44 of 100: how capable the model is at F16, whatever it runs on. Match score 74/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 F16 · 124 tok/s · Runs great
44Fair quality (C) · 44 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 74/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER Q8_0 · 143 tok/s · Runs great

Quick answers

How much memory does Granite 4.0 H Tiny (7B-A1B) need on the M3 Max 36GB?

At F16 it needs about 16.5 GB. The M3 Max 36GB has 24.1 GB usable.

How fast is Granite 4.0 H Tiny (7B-A1B) on the M3 Max 36GB?

About 56.1 tok/s at F16, an estimate from the hardware’s memory bandwidth and the size of the model.

Which quantization of Granite 4.0 H Tiny (7B-A1B) should I use on the M3 Max 36GB?

F16. Of the versions that fit, it is the one that runs best; when two run equally well, the check prefers the higher-rated one.

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.