MistralMixtral 8x7B Instruct on Apple M4 Max (36GB Unified)
Yes — M4 Max (36GB Unified) handles Mixtral 8x7B Instruct well at Q4_K_M — 20 tok/s. Solid daily-driver performance on 36 GB VRAM.
Model Size
46.7B
Device VRAM
36 GB
Bandwidth
546 GB/s
Quantization
Q4_K_M
Performance by Quantization
OwnRig currently has one published compatibility entry for Mixtral 8x7B Instruct on Apple M4 Max (36GB Unified) at Q4_K_M. This is the best supported pairing we can stand behind today.
| Quantization | Speed | TTFT | Fits in VRAM | Rating | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Q4_K_M | 20 tok/s | 500ms | ✓ Yes | Good | estimated |
Notes
Q4_K_M
Q4 at 26.2GB fits in 36GB unified memory. MoE sparsity gives good speed despite total param count.
About Mixtral 8x7B Instruct
Mixtral 8x7B Instruct (46.7B) is a chat, coding, reasoning, multi-purpose model. Mixture-of-Experts model: 46.7B total params but only ~12.9B active per token. Quality closer to a 13B dense model with inference speed to match. Needs more VRAM for the full weight set though.
View all Mixtral 8x7B Instruct hardware options →About Apple M4 Max (36GB Unified)
Apple M4 Max (36GB Unified) has 36 GB at 546 GB/s. Available in MacBook Pro 16", Mac Studio.
See all models Apple M4 Max (36GB Unified) can run →Estimate method: MLX MoE reports. Reference hardware source: github.com (2026-01-15)
Performance varies by driver version, inference engine, quantization method, context length, and system configuration. Figures shown are estimates based on community benchmarks and may not reflect your exact setup. Product names are trademarks of their respective owners. OwnRig is independent and not affiliated with any hardware or AI model provider.