Granite 3.1 8B on Apple M2 Max · 64GB

✅ Runs comfortably — Granite 3.1 8B @ Q8_0
Granite 3.1 8B 8B at Q8_0 needs ~9.8 GB (weights 8.1 GB + KV 1.3 GB + overhead 512 MB @ 8K ctx) of your 45.0 GB usable (of 64.0 GB unified memory) — plenty of headroom. Expect ~19–30 tok/s (fast).
context @ Q8_0: comfortable to 128K
quantneedsspeed
✓ Q8_09.8 GB~19–30 tok/s (fast)
✓ Q6_K8.0 GB~25–40 tok/s (fast)
✓ Q5_K_M7.1 GB~25–45 tok/s (fast)
✓ Q4_K_M6.4 GB~30–50 tok/s (fast)
$runlocal install granite3.1-dense:8b
runlocal verdict card
download card share on x share on reddit drop it in your model-drop post
Granite 3.1 8B: Runs comfortably
for your own README — links back here

Same model, other machines: Apple M1 · Apple M1 Pro · Apple M2 · Apple M3 Pro · Apple M2 Pro · Apple M4 Pro

Also runs on a Apple M2 Max: DeepSeek-R1 (distill) · Qwen3 · Llama 3.1 · Llama 3.3 · Qwen2.5

Best models for a Apple M2 Max · 64GB →

Architecturally similar

These share Granite 3.1 8B's KV-cache geometry — they size memory the same way, so here's how they fit on a Apple M2 Max · 64GB too:

modelsharesverdict here
Qwen2.5-Coder 8kv/128hd ✅ Runs (tight)
Llama 3.2 8kv/128hd ✅ Runs comfortably
Mistral 7B 8kv/128hd ✅ Runs comfortably
Mistral Small 3 8kv/128hd ✅ Runs comfortably
Mistral Nemo 8kv/128hd ✅ Runs comfortably
Codestral 8kv/128hd ✅ Runs comfortably
Llama 3.2 Vision 8kv/128hd ✅ Runs comfortably
Mixtral 8x7B 8kv/128hd ✅ Runs comfortably

…and 6 more — see the Granite 3.1 8B page.

Check any combo yourself: open the checker →