Hardware · Apple Silicon
What AI models can the Apple M2 (8 GB) run?
- Unified memory
- 8.0 GB
- Usable for models
- 5.4 GB
- Memory bandwidth
- 100 GB/s
- FP16 compute
- 3.6 TFLOPS
- Released
- 2022
macOS lets the GPU use roughly two-thirds to three-quarters of unified memory by default, so we plan around that figure rather than the full 8.0 GB.
More about this hardware
| Maker | Apple Silicon |
|---|---|
| Type | Apple silicon (system on a chip) |
| Chip | Apple M2 |
Apps that run models well on the Apple M2 (8 GB)
4 products with the Apple M2 (8 GB)
Best LLMs for the Apple M2 (8 GB)
| Quality | Model | Quant | Memory | Speed | Runs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 58Good quality (B) · 58 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 81/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | Gemma 4 E2B | Q4_K_M | 4.2 GB | 46.0 tok/s | Runs great |
| 64Good quality (B) · 64 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 81/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | Nemotron Labs Dory 1.0 4B | Q4_K_M | 3.9 GB | 26.6 tok/s | Runs well |
| 62Good quality (B) · 62 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 80/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | Spark-X2.6 4B | Q4_K_M | 3.8 GB | 25.7 tok/s | Runs well |
| 64Good quality (B) · 64 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 80/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | Nanbeige4.2 3B | Q4_K_M | 5.0 GB | 25.3 tok/s | Runs welltight fit |
| 58Good quality (B) · 58 of 100: how capable the model is at Q3_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 78/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | Nemotron 3.5 Bolt E4B | Q3_K_M | 5.1 GB | 30.4 tok/s | Runs welltight fit |
| 57Good quality (B) · 57 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 78/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | MiniCPM5 2B | Q4_K_M | 2.9 GB | 41.9 tok/s | Runs great |
| 57Good quality (B) · 57 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. | TMax 4B | Q4_K_M | 3.9 GB | 25.1 tok/s | Runs well |
| 58Good quality (B) · 58 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. | Qwen3.5 4B | Q4_K_M | 4.1 GB | 22.7 tok/s | Runs well |
| 57Good quality (B) · 57 of 100: how capable the model is at Q3_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 77/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | Gemma 4 E4B | Q3_K_M | 5.1 GB | 30.4 tok/s | Runs welltight fit |
| 57Good quality (B) · 57 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. | Agents-A1 4B | Q4_K_M | 4.1 GB | 23.3 tok/s | Runs well |
| 50Fair quality (C) · 50 of 100: how capable the model is at Q3_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 76/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | Ling 3.0 Tiny (8B-A1.3B) | Q3_K_M | 5.1 GB | 78.4 tok/s | Runs welltight fit |
| 55Good quality (B) · 55 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. | Fara 1.5 4B | Q4_K_M | 4.1 GB | 23.3 tok/s | Runs well |
Best Image models for the Apple M2 (8 GB)
| Quality | Model | Quant | Memory | Speed | Runs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 72Great quality (A) · 72 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4 GGUF, whatever it runs on. Match score 75/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | FLUX.2 [klein] 4B | Q4 GGUF | 4.6 GB | 25 s | Runs welltight fit · encoder unloaded after use |
| 39Basic quality (D) · 39 of 100: how capable the model is at FP8, whatever it runs on. Match score 72/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | SDXL Turbo | FP8 | 4.2 GB | 2.7 s | Runs great |
| 89Excellent quality (A+) · 89 of 100: how capable the model is at FP8, whatever it runs on. Match score 71/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | FLUX 3 Image Klein | FP8 | 4.2 GB | 2.2 min | SlowCPU offload |
| 82Great quality (A) · 82 of 100: how capable the model is at FP8, whatever it runs on. Match score 70/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | Z-Image Turbo | FP8 | 4.4 GB | 58 s | SlowCPU offload |
| 52Fair quality (C) · 52 of 100: how capable the model is at FP8, whatever it runs on. Match score 69/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | SDXL-Lightning (4-step) | FP8 | 4.7 GB | 13 s | Runs welltight fit · encoder unloaded after use |
| 78Great quality (A) · 78 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4 GGUF, whatever it runs on. Match score 68/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | FLUX.2 [klein] 9B | Q4 GGUF | 4.3 GB | 56 s | SlowCPU offload |
Best Video models for the Apple M2 (8 GB)
| Quality | Model | Quant | Memory | Speed | Runs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 35Basic quality (D) · 35 of 100: how capable the model is at FP16, whatever it runs on. Match score 63/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | AnimateDiff v3 (SD 1.5) | FP16 | 4.7 GB | 6.6 min | Runs welltight fit |
| 49Fair quality (C) · 49 of 100: how capable the model is at FP8, whatever it runs on. Match score 57/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | LTX-Video 2B | FP8 | 4.0 GB | 9.7 min | Runs wellCPU offload |
| 44Fair quality (C) · 44 of 100: how capable the model is at FP8, whatever it runs on. Match score 50/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | CogVideoX 2B | FP8 | 4.7 GB | 23.3 min | Slowtight fit · CPU offload |
Best Decision models for the Apple M2 (8 GB)
| Quality | Model | Quant | Memory | Speed | Runs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 80Great quality (A) · 80 of 100: how capable the model is at F16, whatever it runs on. Match score 91/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | GLiNER2.5 Decide | F16 | 1.7 GB | 74 ms | Runs great |
| 86Excellent quality (A+) · 86 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 90/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | Jina Reranker v3.5 | Q8_0 | 1.9 GB | 153 ms | Runs well |
| 80Great quality (A) · 80 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 90/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | FRIDA-Decisions | Q8_0 | 1.7 GB | 106 ms | Runs great |
| 84Great quality (A) · 84 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 89/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | Jina Reranker v3 | Q8_0 | 1.9 GB | 153 ms | Runs well |
| 76Great quality (A) · 76 of 100: how capable the model is at F16, whatever it runs on. Match score 89/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | Llama Prompt Guard 2 86M | F16 | 1.2 GB | 84 ms | Runs great |
| 74Great quality (A) · 74 of 100: how capable the model is at F16, whatever it runs on. Match score 88/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | GLiClass ModernBERT Large v3 | F16 | 1.5 GB | 61 ms | Runs great |
| 80Great quality (A) · 80 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 88/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | Qwen3 Reranker 0.6B | Q8_0 | 1.9 GB | 153 ms | Runs well |
| 78Great quality (A) · 78 of 100: how capable the model is at F16, whatever it runs on. Match score 88/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | OpenAI Privacy Filter | F16 | 3.8 GB | 11 ms | Runs great |
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.