Nous Hermes 2 Mixtral 8x7B DPO on Apple M5 Ultra (256 GB)

Can the Apple M5 Ultra (256 GB) run Nous Hermes 2 Mixtral 8x7B DPO?

Yes, it runs great

Runs great. At Q8_0 it needs about 66.5 GB of 192 GB usable, with an estimated speed of 42.0 tok/s.

Best quant: Q8_0
Generation speed: 42.0 tok/s
Prompt processing: 1,812 tok/s
First token (1K prompt): 0.6 s
Largest safe context: 32K

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

On macOS

LM Studio

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

Runs the MLX build, typically 10–20% faster than GGUF for a model with 12.9B active parameters on Apple silicon.
Point-and-click: search, download and chat in one window.

Open Nous Hermes 2 Mixtral 8x7B DPO in LM Studio

Ollama One command with Ollama’s own build of this model.
llama.cpp Usually the first to support new model architectures.

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 Nous Hermes 2 Mixtral 8x7B DPO

Recommended for the Apple M5 Ultra (256 GB): Q8_0. 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 nous-hermes2-mixtral:8x7b-dpo-q8_0

Quantized files · GGUF

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

Download the Q8_0 file (opens in a new tab)

huggingface.co/NousResearch/Nous-Hermes-2-Mixtral-8x7B-DPO-GGUF (opens in a new tab)

ollama run hf.co/NousResearch/Nous-Hermes-2-Mixtral-8x7B-DPO-GGUF:Q8_0

Original weights · Hugging Face

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

huggingface.co/NousResearch/Nous-Hermes-2-Mixtral-8x7B-DPO (opens in a new tab)

No sign-in needed.

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

How it’s rated

Quality 52Fair quality (C) · 52 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 71/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.: How capable the model itself is at Q8_0, 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 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.	23.4 / 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.	15.0 / 15
Memory useRewards using the memory you have, so a bigger, better variant beats a tiny one that leaves most memory idle.	8.0 / 15
Match score	71.4 / 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 M5 Ultra (256 GB)

Quant	Memory needed	Available	Speed	Runs	Quality	Download
`Q2_K`	35.7 GB	192 GB	107 tok/s	Runs great	36Basic quality (D) · 36 of 100: how capable the model is at Q2_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 60/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF (opens in a new tab)
`Q3_K_M`	39.9 GB	192 GB	90.0 tok/s	Runs great	43Fair quality (C) · 43 of 100: how capable the model is at Q3_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 64/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF (opens in a new tab)
`Q4_K_M`	45.5 GB	192 GB	73.9 tok/s	Runs great	49Fair quality (C) · 49 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 67/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF (opens in a new tab)
`Q5_K_M`	50.2 GB	192 GB	63.2 tok/s	Runs great	50Fair quality (C) · 50 of 100: how capable the model is at Q5_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 68/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF (opens in a new tab)
`Q6_K`	55.3 GB	192 GB	54.7 tok/s	Runs great	51Fair quality (C) · 51 of 100: how capable the model is at Q6_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 69/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF (opens in a new tab)
`Q8_0`	66.5 GB	192 GB	42.0 tok/s	Runs great	52Fair quality (C) · 52 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 71/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF (opens in a new tab)
`F16`	110 GB	192 GB	21.0 tok/s	Runs well	52Fair quality (C) · 52 of 100: how capable the model is at F16, whatever it runs on. Match score 72/100 (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.

Other hardware that runs it

49Fair quality (C) · 49 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 77/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. Apple M4 Max (64 GB) Q4_K_M · 38.9 tok/s · Runs great
52Fair quality (C) · 52 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 76/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Q8_0 · 65.3 tok/s · Runs great
49Fair quality (C) · 49 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 76/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Q4_K_M · 108 tok/s · Runs well (tight fit)
49Fair quality (C) · 49 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 75/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. Apple M1 Max (64 GB) Q4_K_M · 29.5 tok/s · Runs well
49Fair quality (C) · 49 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 72/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. Apple M4 Pro (48 GB) Q4_K_M · 20.8 tok/s · Runs well (tight fit)
51Fair quality (C) · 51 of 100: how capable the model is at Q6_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 71/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. Apple M2 Ultra (192 GB) Q6_K · 39.1 tok/s · Runs great

Quick answers

How much memory does Nous Hermes 2 Mixtral 8x7B DPO need on the M5 Ultra 256GB?

At Q8_0 it needs about 66.5 GB. The M5 Ultra 256GB has 192 GB usable.

How fast is Nous Hermes 2 Mixtral 8x7B DPO on the M5 Ultra 256GB?

About 42.0 tok/s at Q8_0, an estimate from the hardware’s memory bandwidth and the size of the model.

Which quantization of Nous Hermes 2 Mixtral 8x7B DPO should I use on the M5 Ultra 256GB?

Q8_0. 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.