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Can the Apple M5 Max (128 GB) run Kimi K2 Thinking (1T)?

65Good quality (B) · 65 of 100: how capable the model is at Q2_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 8/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.

No, it doesn’t fit

No. Kimi K2 Thinking (1T) needs about 419 GB even at Q2_K; the Apple M5 Max (128 GB) has 96.0 GB usable.

Download Kimi K2 Thinking (1T)

Recommended: Q2_K. Every other quantization has its own download link in the table below.

Ollama

Ollama only offered this as a cloud model, and has since retired it. To run it locally, use the GGUF files below with llama.cpp or LM Studio.

Quantized files · GGUF

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

Download the Q2_K files (opens in a new tab)

huggingface.co/unsloth/Kimi-K2-Thinking-GGUF (opens in a new tab)

ollama run hf.co/unsloth/Kimi-K2-Thinking-GGUF

Original weights · Hugging Face

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

huggingface.co/moonshotai/Kimi-K2-Thinking (opens in a new tab)

No sign-in needed.

Official repo · GitHub

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

github.com/MoonshotAI/Kimi-K2 (opens in a new tab)

git clone https://github.com/MoonshotAI/Kimi-K2

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

How it’s rated

Quality 65Good quality (B) · 65 of 100: how capable the model is at Q2_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 8/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.
How capable the model itself is at Q2_K, 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 Won't run
How well it runs on the Apple M5 Max (128 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.8.8 / 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.0.0 / 25
SpeedGeneration speed against a 40 tokens/s target for LLMs, or render time against a target for image and video.0.0 / 15
Memory useRewards using the memory you have, so a bigger, better variant beats a tiny one that leaves most memory idle.0.0 / 15
Match score8.8 / 100

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

It doesn’t fit, so only a reduced share of the quality points counts and fit, speed and memory use score zero.

Every quantization on the Apple M5 Max (128 GB)

Quant Memory needed Available Speed Runs Quality Download
Q2_K 419 GB 96.0 GB — Won't run 65Good quality (B) · 65 of 100: how capable the model is at Q2_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 8/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. GGUF · folder (opens in a new tab)
Q3_K_M 512 GB 96.0 GB — Won't run 78Great quality (A) · 78 of 100: how capable the model is at Q3_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 10/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. GGUF · folder (opens in a new tab)
Q4_K_M 635 GB 96.0 GB — Won't run 88Excellent quality (A+) · 88 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 11/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. GGUF · folder (opens in a new tab)
Q5_K_M 738 GB 96.0 GB — Won't run 90Excellent quality (A+) · 90 of 100: how capable the model is at Q5_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 12/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. GGUF · folder (opens in a new tab)
Q6_K 851 GB 96.0 GB — Won't run 92Excellent quality (A+) · 92 of 100: how capable the model is at Q6_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 12/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. GGUF · folder (opens in a new tab)
Q8_0 1,097 GB 96.0 GB — Won't run 93Excellent quality (A+) · 93 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 12/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. GGUF · folder (opens in a new tab)
F16 2,062 GB 96.0 GB — Won't run 93Excellent quality (A+) · 93 of 100: how capable the model is at F16, whatever it runs on. Match score 12/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. GGUF · folder (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.

Hardware that can run it

Models that do run on the Apple M5 Max (128 GB)

Quick answers

How much memory does Kimi K2 Thinking (1T) need on the M5 Max 128GB?

Even at Q2_K it needs about 419 GB; the M5 Max 128GB has 96.0 GB usable.

What can the M5 Max 128GB run instead?

Qwen3.6 35B-A3B, MiniCPM-V 4.7 35B-A3B and Qwen3.5 35B-A3B run best on it; the page lists more, each with its speed.

What hardware can run Kimi K2 Thinking (1T)?

M3 Ultra 512GB, AMD EPYC 7002 / 7003 series NAS 512GB and Intel Xeon Silver (4100 to 4300 series) NAS 512GB run it; the page lists more, each with its 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.

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