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Llama 3.2 3B Instruct on Apple M4 Pro (48GB)

Apple M4 Pro (48GB) runs Llama 3.2 3B Instruct excellently at 60 tok/s at Q8_0. This is a strong pairing.

Model Size

3.21B

Device VRAM

48 GB

Bandwidth

273 GB/s

Quantizations Tested

1

Performance by Quantization

Each row shows Llama 3.2 3B Instruct performance at a different quality level on Apple M4 Pro (48GB).

QuantizationSpeedTTFTFits in VRAMRatingConfidence
Q8_060 tok/s80ms✓ YesExcellentestimated

Notes

Q8_0

Same bandwidth as M4 Pro 24GB. 3B fits with massive headroom for concurrent models.

About Llama 3.2 3B Instruct

Llama 3.2 3B Instruct (3.21B) is a chat, coding, ai coding, reasoning model. Ultra-lightweight model that runs on virtually any GPU. Surprisingly capable for its size — good at summarization, simple coding tasks, and quick chat. The default choice when speed matters more than depth.

View all Llama 3.2 3B Instruct hardware options →

About Apple M4 Pro (48GB)

Apple M4 Pro (48GB) has 48 GB at 273 GB/s. Available in MacBook Pro 16-inch, Mac Mini.

See all models Apple M4 Pro (48GB) can run →

Source: MLX performance estimates based on device bandwidth (2026-03-15)

Data last updated: 2026-03-15