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Can the Apple M1 Pro (16 GB) run Mixtral 8x7B Instruct?

35Basic quality (D) · 35 of 100: how capable the model is at Q2_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 4/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.

No, it doesn’t fit

No. Mixtral 8x7B Instruct needs about 21.2 GB even at Q2_K; the Apple M1 Pro (16 GB) has 10.7 GB usable.

Download Mixtral 8x7B Instruct

Recommended: Q2_K. 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 mixtral:8x7b-instruct-v0.1-q2_K

Quantized files · GGUF

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

Download the Q2_K file (opens in a new tab)

huggingface.co/TheBloke/Mixtral-8x7B-Instruct-v0.1-GGUF (opens in a new tab)

ollama run hf.co/TheBloke/Mixtral-8x7B-Instruct-v0.1-GGUF:Q2_K

Original weights · Hugging Face

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

huggingface.co/mistralai/Mixtral-8x7B-Instruct-v0.1 (opens in a new tab)

No sign-in needed.

Official repo · GitHub

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

github.com/mistralai/mistral-inference (opens in a new tab)

Mistral AI’s official inference code.

git clone https://github.com/mistralai/mistral-inference

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

How it’s rated

Quality 35Basic quality (D) · 35 of 100: how capable the model is at Q2_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 4/100 (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 M1 Pro (16 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.4.7 / 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 score4.7 / 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 M1 Pro (16 GB)

Quant Memory needed Available Speed Runs Quality Download
Q2_K 21.2 GB 10.7 GB — Won't run 35Basic quality (D) · 35 of 100: how capable the model is at Q2_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 4/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. GGUF (opens in a new tab)
Q3_K_M 25.4 GB 10.7 GB — Won't run 42Fair quality (C) · 42 of 100: how capable the model is at Q3_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 5/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. GGUF (opens in a new tab)
Q4_K_M 31.0 GB 10.7 GB — Won't run 47Fair quality (C) · 47 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 6/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. GGUF (opens in a new tab)
Q5_K_M 35.7 GB 10.7 GB — Won't run 48Fair quality (C) · 48 of 100: how capable the model is at Q5_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 6/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. GGUF (opens in a new tab)
Q6_K 40.8 GB 10.7 GB — Won't run 49Fair quality (C) · 49 of 100: how capable the model is at Q6_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 6/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. GGUF (opens in a new tab)
Q8_0 52.0 GB 10.7 GB — Won't run 50Fair quality (C) · 50 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 6/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. GGUF (opens in a new tab)
F16 95.9 GB 10.7 GB — Won't run 50Fair quality (C) · 50 of 100: how capable the model is at F16, whatever it runs on. Match score 6/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. 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 M1 Pro (16 GB)

Quick answers

How much memory does Mixtral 8x7B Instruct need on the M1 Pro 16GB?

Even at Q2_K it needs about 21.2 GB; the M1 Pro 16GB has 10.7 GB usable.

What can the M1 Pro 16GB run instead?

K2 Horizon 7B, Nemotron 3.5 Bolt E4B and Mellum2.1 Thinking (12B-A2.5B) run best on it; the page lists more, each with its speed.

What hardware can run Mixtral 8x7B Instruct?

M4 Max 64GB, NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell 96GB and RTX 5090 32GB 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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