8GB
What Can You Run on 8GB Apple Silicon? Local AI on a Budget Mac
Llama 3.2 3B runs at 30 tok/s. Phi-4 Mini fits with room to spare. 7B models technically load but swap to disk. Honest benchmarks and real limits for 8GB M1/M2/M3/M4 Macs.
What Can You Actually Run on 8GB VRAM?
Qwen 3.5 9B is the new king of 8GB VRAM — 7GB at Q4_K_M with native vision. Plus every model that works on RTX 4060 and 3060 Ti, Stable Diffusion benchmarks, and the best upgrade path. Updated March 2026.