Apple Silicon unified-memory guide
Local AI on 16GB Apple Silicon unified memory
Apple Silicon uses unified memory with Metal-capable local inference paths when the selected runtime supports them. AIPCFit reserves 5GB for macOS, apps, and runtime overhead, leaving about 11GB as the local model planning budget.
This page is for Apple Silicon Macs only. Intel Macs and incomplete Mac profiles are handled conservatively by the fit engine and do not receive Apple Silicon recommendations.
Catalog variants within this memory budget
Good fit
Llama 3.2 3B
Llama 3.2 3B · Q4_K_M · 3.7 GB planning memory · 2.7 GB minimum load
Good fit
Phi-3.5 Mini
Phi-3.5 Mini · Q4_K_M · 4.2 GB planning memory · 3.2 GB minimum load
Good fit
Phi-4 Mini
Phi-4 Mini · Q4_K_M · 4.2 GB planning memory · 3.2 GB minimum load
Good fit
Gemma 3 4B
Gemma 3 4B · Q4_K_M · 4.5 GB planning memory · 3.5 GB minimum load
Good fit
Qwen3 4B
Qwen3 4B · Q4_K_M · 4.5 GB planning memory · 3.5 GB minimum load
Good fit
Llama 3.2 3B
Llama 3.2 3B · Q8_0 · 5.2 GB planning memory · 4.2 GB minimum load
Good fit
DeepSeek-R1 Distill Qwen 7B
DeepSeek-R1 Distill Qwen 7B · Q4_K_M · 6.1 GB planning memory · 5.1 GB minimum load
Good fit
Mistral 7B
Mistral 7B · Q4_K_M · 6.1 GB planning memory · 5.1 GB minimum load
Good fit
Gemma 3 4B
Gemma 3 4B · Q8_0 · 6.2 GB planning memory · 5.2 GB minimum load
Good fit
Qwen3 4B
Qwen3 4B · Q8_0 · 6.2 GB planning memory · 5.2 GB minimum load
Good fit
Llama 3.1 8B
Llama 3.1 8B · Q4_K_M · 6.6 GB planning memory · 5.6 GB minimum load
Good fit
Qwen3 8B
Qwen3 8B · Q4_K_M · 7 GB planning memory · 6 GB minimum load
Good fit
Llama 3.1 8B
Llama 3.1 8B · Q5_K_M · 7.8 GB planning memory · 6.8 GB minimum load
Good fit
Qwen3 8B
Qwen3 8B · Q5_K_M · 7.8 GB planning memory · 6.8 GB minimum load
Good fit
Gemma 3 12B
Gemma 3 12B · Q4_K_M · 9.9 GB planning memory · 8.4 GB minimum load
Good fit
DeepSeek-R1 Distill Qwen 7B
DeepSeek-R1 Distill Qwen 7B · Q8_0 · 10 GB planning memory · 8.5 GB minimum load
Good fit
Mistral 7B
Mistral 7B · Q8_0 · 10 GB planning memory · 8.5 GB minimum load
Good fit
DeepSeek-R1 Distill Qwen 14B
DeepSeek-R1 Distill Qwen 14B · Q4_K_M · 10.9 GB planning memory · 9.3 GB minimum load
Good fit
Phi-4
Phi-4 · Q4_K_M · 10.9 GB planning memory · 9.3 GB minimum load
Fits
Gemma 3 12B
Gemma 3 12B · Q5_K_M · 11.6 GB planning memory · 9.9 GB minimum load
Fits
Qwen3 14B
Qwen3 14B · Q4_K_M · 12.2 GB planning memory · 10.4 GB minimum load
Tight
Qwen3 14B
Qwen3 14B · Q5_K_M · 13.6 GB planning memory · 11.6 GB minimum load