Fastest published Mac-family result
MacBook Pro M5 Max 128GB 16-inch maps to 26.0 tok/s from the strongest published chip-family row for Llama 4 Scout 17B-16E.
Canonical Rankings
Best Macs for this model
Llama 4 Scout 17B-16E ranked across the Mac lineup at the best practical quantization, using the best available runtime evidence. Model picker is focused on current-market choices.
| Rank | Mac | Score | Quant | Tok/s | Runtime | Fits | Headroom | Context | Evidence | Price | Why it ranks here |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mac Studio M3 Ultra 256GB | 323 | 8bit | 26.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 26.0 tok/s · MLX · Estimated | MLX | Fits | 152.5 GB | 631k | Estimated | $7,499 | 8bit is the current best practical quantization. 26.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 152.5 GB headroom remains at this quantization. |
| 2 | Mac Pro M2 Ultra 192GB | 259 | 8bit | 26.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 26.0 tok/s · MLX · Estimated | MLX | Fits | 88.5 GB | 334k | Estimated | $6,999 | 8bit is the current best practical quantization. 26.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 88.5 GB headroom remains at this quantization. |
| 3 | Mac Studio M4 Max 128GB | 195 | 8bit | 26.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 26.0 tok/s · MLX · Estimated | MLX | Fits | 24.5 GB | 37k | Estimated | $4,499 | 8bit is the current best practical quantization. 26.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 24.5 GB headroom remains at this quantization. |
| 4 | MacBook Pro M5 Max 128GB 16-inch | 195 | 8bit | 26.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 26.0 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated | Ollama | Fits | 24.5 GB | 37k | Estimated | $5,399 | 8bit is the current best practical quantization. 26.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 24.5 GB headroom remains at this quantization. |
| 5 | MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB 16-inch | 195 | 8bit | 26.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 26.0 tok/s · MLX · Estimated | MLX | Fits | 24.5 GB | 37k | Estimated | $5,999 | 8bit is the current best practical quantization. 26.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 24.5 GB headroom remains at this quantization. |
| 6 | Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB | 182 | 6bit | 26.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 6bit · 26.0 tok/s · MLX · Estimated | MLX | Fits | 17.9 GB | 27k | Estimated | $3,999 | 6bit is the current best practical quantization. 26.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 17.9 GB headroom remains at this quantization. |
| 7 | Mac Studio M4 Max 64GB | 168 | q4.1bit | 26.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: q4.1bit · 26.0 tok/s · MLX · Estimated | MLX | Fits | 10.0 GB | 10k | Estimated | $2,999 | q4.1bit is the current best practical quantization. 26.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 10.0 GB headroom remains at this quantization. |
| 8 | MacBook Pro M4 Max 64GB 16-inch | 168 | q4.1bit | 26.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: q4.1bit · 26.0 tok/s · MLX · Estimated | MLX | Fits | 10.0 GB | 10k | Estimated | $4,499 | q4.1bit is the current best practical quantization. 26.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 10.0 GB headroom remains at this quantization. |
| 9 | Mac Mini M4 Pro 48GB | 136 | 3bit | 26.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 3bit · 26.0 tok/s · MLX · Estimated | MLX | Fits | 7.9 GB | 12k | Estimated | $1,599 | 3bit is the current best practical quantization. 26.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 7.9 GB headroom remains at this quantization. |
| 10 | MacBook Pro M4 Pro 48GB 14-inch | 136 | 3bit | 26.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 3bit · 26.0 tok/s · MLX · Estimated | MLX | Fits | 7.9 GB | 12k | Estimated | $2,499 | 3bit is the current best practical quantization. 26.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 7.9 GB headroom remains at this quantization. |
| 11 | Mac Studio M4 Max 48GB | 136 | 3bit | 26.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 3bit · 26.0 tok/s · MLX · Estimated | MLX | Fits | 7.9 GB | 12k | Estimated | $2,499 | 3bit is the current best practical quantization. 26.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 7.9 GB headroom remains at this quantization. |
| 12 | MacBook Pro M4 Pro 48GB 16-inch | 136 | 3bit | 26.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 3bit · 26.0 tok/s · MLX · Estimated | MLX | Fits | 7.9 GB | 12k | Estimated | $2,999 | 3bit is the current best practical quantization. 26.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 7.9 GB headroom remains at this quantization. |
| 13 | MacBook Pro M4 Max 48GB 14-inch | 136 | 3bit | 26.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 3bit · 26.0 tok/s · MLX · Estimated | MLX | Fits | 7.9 GB | 12k | Estimated | $3,499 | 3bit is the current best practical quantization. 26.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 7.9 GB headroom remains at this quantization. |
| 14 | MacBook Pro M4 Max 48GB 16-inch | 136 | 3bit | 26.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 3bit · 26.0 tok/s · MLX · Estimated | MLX | Fits | 7.9 GB | 12k | Estimated | $3,999 | 3bit is the current best practical quantization. 26.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 7.9 GB headroom remains at this quantization. |
| 15 | Mac Studio M4 Max 36GB | 135 | IQ2_K_S | 26.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: IQ2_K_S · 26.0 tok/s · MLX · Estimated | MLX | Fits | 7.4 GB | 19k | Estimated | $1,999 | IQ2_K_S is the current best practical quantization. 26.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 7.4 GB headroom remains at this quantization. |
| 16 | MacBook Pro M4 Max 36GB 14-inch | 135 | IQ2_K_S | 26.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: IQ2_K_S · 26.0 tok/s · MLX · Estimated | MLX | Fits | 7.4 GB | 19k | Estimated | $2,999 | IQ2_K_S is the current best practical quantization. 26.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 7.4 GB headroom remains at this quantization. |
| 17 | MacBook Pro M4 Max 36GB 16-inch | 135 | IQ2_K_S | 26.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: IQ2_K_S · 26.0 tok/s · MLX · Estimated | MLX | Fits | 7.4 GB | 19k | Estimated | $3,499 | IQ2_K_S is the current best practical quantization. 26.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 7.4 GB headroom remains at this quantization. |
| 18 | Mac Mini M4 16GB | 0 | F32 | — | MLX | No | -392.1 GB | — | Estimated | $499 | Llama 4 Scout 17B-16E does not fit on Mac Mini M4 16GB at the current practical quantization. |
| 19 | Mac Mini M4 24GB | 0 | F32 | — | MLX | No | -384.1 GB | — | Estimated | $599 | Llama 4 Scout 17B-16E does not fit on Mac Mini M4 24GB at the current practical quantization. |
| 20 | Mac Mini M4 32GB | 0 | F32 | — | MLX | No | -376.1 GB | — | Estimated | $799 | Llama 4 Scout 17B-16E does not fit on Mac Mini M4 32GB at the current practical quantization. |
| 21 | MacBook Air M4 16GB 13-inch | 0 | F32 | — | MLX | No | -392.1 GB | — | Estimated | $1,099 | Llama 4 Scout 17B-16E does not fit on MacBook Air M4 16GB 13-inch at the current practical quantization. |
| 22 | MacBook Air M4 24GB 13-inch | 0 | F32 | — | MLX | No | -384.1 GB | — | Estimated | $1,299 | Llama 4 Scout 17B-16E does not fit on MacBook Air M4 24GB 13-inch at the current practical quantization. |
| 23 | MacBook Air M4 16GB 15-inch | 0 | F32 | — | MLX | No | -392.1 GB | — | Estimated | $1,299 | Llama 4 Scout 17B-16E does not fit on MacBook Air M4 16GB 15-inch at the current practical quantization. |
| 24 | Mac Mini M4 Pro 24GB | 0 | F32 | — | MLX | No | -384.1 GB | — | Estimated | $1,399 | Llama 4 Scout 17B-16E does not fit on Mac Mini M4 Pro 24GB at the current practical quantization. |
| 25 | MacBook Air M4 32GB 13-inch | 0 | F32 | — | MLX | No | -376.1 GB | — | Estimated | $1,499 | Llama 4 Scout 17B-16E does not fit on MacBook Air M4 32GB 13-inch at the current practical quantization. |
| 26 | MacBook Air M4 24GB 15-inch | 0 | F32 | — | MLX | No | -384.1 GB | — | Estimated | $1,499 | Llama 4 Scout 17B-16E does not fit on MacBook Air M4 24GB 15-inch at the current practical quantization. |
| 27 | MacBook Air M4 32GB 15-inch | 0 | F32 | — | MLX | No | -376.1 GB | — | Estimated | $1,699 | Llama 4 Scout 17B-16E does not fit on MacBook Air M4 32GB 15-inch at the current practical quantization. |
| 28 | MacBook Pro M4 Pro 24GB 14-inch | 0 | F32 | — | MLX | No | -384.1 GB | — | Estimated | $1,999 | Llama 4 Scout 17B-16E does not fit on MacBook Pro M4 Pro 24GB 14-inch at the current practical quantization. |
| 29 | MacBook Pro M4 Pro 24GB 16-inch | 0 | F32 | — | MLX | No | -384.1 GB | — | Estimated | $2,499 | Llama 4 Scout 17B-16E does not fit on MacBook Pro M4 Pro 24GB 16-inch at the current practical quantization. |
Llama 4 Scout 17B-16E Apple Silicon benchmark and best Macs
Start with the ranked Mac table above, then audit tokens per second, RAM fit, quantization, runtimes, and source links before trusting the model on your Mac.
Quantizations observed: Q4_K - Medium
3Benchmark rows
2Chip tiers covered
30.0Fastest avg tok/s (M4 Ultra (192 GB))
—Minimum RAM observed
Quick take
Fastest published result is 30.0 tok/s on M4 Ultra (192 GB) at Q4_K - Medium. Published runtimes include MLX, Ollama. Start with Rankings for the decision, then use the raw rows below to audit the evidence.
Based on 3 external benchmarks; no lab runs yet.
Published runtimes: MLX, Ollama.
Best Mac shortlist
These are ranked by the fastest published Llama 4 Scout 17B-16E result available for each Mac's chip family. Use them as the search answer, then open the machine page before buying.
Model search answers
How fast is Llama 4 Scout 17B-16E on Mac?
Llama 4 Scout 17B-16E currently has a fastest published Mac result of 30.0 tok/s on M4 Ultra (192 GB) at Q4_K - Medium. Check the raw rows on this page before comparing that number to a different runtime, quantization, or context length.
What is the best Mac for Llama 4 Scout 17B-16E?
MacBook Pro M5 Max 128GB 16-inch is the fastest published Mac-family answer for Llama 4 Scout 17B-16E on this page right now, at 26.0 tok/s from its chip family. Treat that as a published benchmark starting point, not a universal buying recommendation.
Does Llama 4 Scout 17B-16E fit on Apple Silicon?
Llama 4 Scout 17B-16E does not yet have a published minimum-RAM fit row on this page. Use Fit before assuming it will run cleanly on a specific Mac.
Catalog record
109BTotal params
17BActive params
10,000,000Context window
2025-04-05Release date
What this model is, and what Apple Silicon users are actually seeing
Official model cards tell you what the model is for and which software stacks it targets. Field reality below shows how much Apple Silicon evidence we have so far.
Official brief
The Llama 4 Models are a collection of pretrained and instruction-tuned mixture-of-experts LLMs offered in two sizes: Llama 4 Scout & Llama 4 Maverick. These models are optimized for multimodal understanding, multilingual tasks, coding, tool-calling, and powering agentic systems.
agentscodingreasoningvisual-understanding
Official specs
- Architecture: Mixture of experts.
- Active parameters: 17B.
- Total parameters: 109B.
- Experts: 16 total.
- Context: 10M tokens.
- Modalities: Text and up to 5 images input, text-only output.
Official takeaways
- These models are optimized for multimodal understanding, multilingual tasks, coding, tool-calling, and powering agentic systems.
- Arabic, English, French, German, Hindi, Indonesian, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Tagalog, Thai, and Vietnamese.
- The Llama 4 Models are a collection of pretrained and instruction-tuned mixture-of-experts LLMs offered in two sizes: Llama 4 Scout & Llama 4 Maverick.
Official model cards describe intent, capabilities, and supported stacks. They do not prove Apple Silicon speed by themselves.
Field reality on Apple Silicon
Llama 4 Scout 17B-16E: 2 practitioner claims; 2 captured from fetched artifacts; hardware mentions: Mac; runtime mentions: LM Studio, MLX, Ollama, oMLX; themes: apple_silicon_viability, coding_quality, fit_and_memory, operational_caution, runtime_tuning; includes operational caveats.
3Benchmark rows
0Field reports
2Practitioner signals
Sparse BenchmarksEvidence status
What practitioners keep saying
- The report says the local fleet runs via Ollama on Apple Silicon M-series unified memory and lists Llama 4 Scout at about 67GB.
- It does not publish Llama 4 Scout throughput, exact Mac hardware, quantization, context, or quality scores, so it should remain workflow-interest evidence rather than field-speed evidence.
- The LM Studio card says the text 4-bit MLX package was converted from Meta's Llama 4 Scout 17B-16E Instruct using mlx-lm 0.22.4 and exposes a load/generate example for MLX.
Apple Silicon field sources
A LocalLLaMA operator reports keeping Llama 4 Scout in an Ollama-based Apple Silicon local fleet, but describes it as still under evaluation rather than as a measured recommendation.
Lmstudio Community Hugging Face model cards
Llama 4 Scout has an auditable 4-bit MLX text conversion with a 60.6GB MLX hardware-compatibility footprint, but the May 5 refresh found no row-level Apple Silicon community throughput beyond trusted-reference LLMCheck rows.
Runtime mentions in the field
LM StudioMLXOllamaoMLX
Hardware mentioned in reports
Mac
What would improve confidence
- Upgrade To First Party Measurement
Current published coverage
Published chip coverage includes M4 Ultra (192 GB), M5 Max (128 GB). Fastest published row is 30.0 tok/s on M4 Ultra (192 GB) at Q4_K - Medium.
Raw benchmark rows for Llama 4 Scout 17B-16E
Rows stay below the ranking because this page is answer-first. Use them to inspect exact chips, quantizations, runtimes, and sources.
| Chip | Quant | Avg tok/s | Runtime | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| M4 Ultra (192 GB) | Q4_K - Medium | 30.0 tok/s | MLX | ref |
| M5 Max (128 GB) | Q4_K - Medium | 26.0 tok/s | MLX | ref |
| M5 Max (128 GB) | Q4_K - Medium | 22.0 tok/s | Ollama | ref |
Chips with published results for Llama 4 Scout 17B-16E
Data
benchmarks.json — full dataset · models.json — model summaries · benchmarks.csv — CSV export