How fast will Llama 3.1 8B feel on the MacBook M3 Max 48GB?

Llama 3.1 8B on the MacBook M3 Max 48GB

Llama 3.1 8B is a 8.03B-parameter model. At Q4_K_M it needs about 5.7 GB of memory. The MacBook M3 Max 48GB has 36 GB usable, so it fits entirely in memory. Expect about 42 tokens/sec (25–60), with the first token after 0.4 s for a short prompt. This estimate is interpolated from benchmarks of similar setups.

Speed by quantization

Quantization	File size	Memory	Generation	First token	Source
Q4_K_M	4.9 GB	Fits	42 tok/s	0.4 s	Derived
Q8_0	8.5 GB	Fits	24 tok/s	0.4 s	Derived
FP16	16.1 GB	Fits	13 tok/s	0.4 s	Derived

Llama 3.1 8B on other hardware

H200 141GB (cloud) · 393 tok/s at Q4_K_M
H100 80GB (cloud) · 124 tok/s at Q4_K_M
Mac Studio M5 Ultra 512GB · 115 tok/s at Q4_K_M
A100 80GB (cloud) · 114 tok/s at Q4_K_M
NVIDIA RTX 4090 24GB · 109 tok/s at Q4_K_M
NVIDIA RTX 3090 24GB · 107 tok/s at Q4_K_M
AMD RX 7900 XT 20GB · 102 tok/s at Q4_K_M
AMD RX 9070 XT 16GB · 82 tok/s at Q4_K_M
AMD Radeon AI PRO R9700 32GB · 82 tok/s at Q4_K_M
NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 96GB · 75 tok/s at Q4_K_M
NVIDIA RTX 5090 32GB · 69 tok/s at Q4_K_M
MacBook Pro M5 Max 128GB · 65 tok/s at Q4_K_M
NVIDIA RTX 4070 12GB · 63 tok/s at Q4_K_M
Mac Studio M3 Ultra 512GB · 63 tok/s at Q4_K_M
NVIDIA RTX 5060 Ti 16GB · 57 tok/s at Q4_K_M
NVIDIA RTX 4070 Ti Super 16GB · 56 tok/s at Q4_K_M
Mac Studio M4 Max 128GB · 53 tok/s at Q4_K_M
NVIDIA RTX 5070 Ti 16GB · 50 tok/s at Q4_K_M
AMD RX 7900 XTX 24GB · 43 tok/s at Q4_K_M
NVIDIA RTX 5080 16GB · 36 tok/s at Q4_K_M
NVIDIA DGX Spark 128GB · 35 tok/s at Q4_K_M
Mac Mini M4 Pro 64GB · 33 tok/s at Q4_K_M
MacBook M4 Pro 24GB · 33 tok/s at Q4_K_M
AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 128GB (Strix Halo) · 33 tok/s at Q4_K_M
MacBook Pro M5 Pro 48GB · 32 tok/s at Q4_K_M
Intel Arc Pro B70 32GB · 26 tok/s at Q4_K_M
MacBook M2 Pro 16GB · 24 tok/s at Q4_K_M
NVIDIA RTX 3060 12GB · 23 tok/s at Q4_K_M
CPU-only (Ryzen 9 9950X, 96GB DDR5) · 10 tok/s at Q4_K_M

Other models on the MacBook M3 Max 48GB

Qwen 3.6/3.8 27B · 12 tok/s at Q4_K_M
GLM-5.3 Flash · won't run
GPT-OSS 20B · 81 tok/s at MXFP4
Gemma 4 26B A4B · 50 tok/s at Q4_K_M
Qwen 3.5/3.6 35B A3B · 106 tok/s at Q4_K_M
Ornith 1.5 35B A3B · 104 tok/s at Q4_K_M
DeepSeek V4 Flash · won't run
GPT-OSS 120B · won't run
Gemma 4 31B · 11 tok/s at Q4_K_M
Qwen 3.5 9B · 33 tok/s at Q4_K_M
DeepSeek R1 Distill 14B · 24 tok/s at Q4_K_M
Ornith 1.5 9B · 33 tok/s at Q4_K_M
Muse Glimmer 30B · 9.5 tok/s at Q4_K_M
Qwen3 30B A3B · 94 tok/s at Q4_K_M

All models on the MacBook M3 Max 48GB · Llama 3.1 8B on all hardware

Estimates for a short prompt on a single device. Measured numbers come from community benchmarks (r/LocalLLaMA, localscore.ai and more); others are derived from similar setups or projected from specs. Open source on GitHub.