Canonical Rankings

Best Macs for this model

Phi-4 14B ranked across the Mac lineup at the best practical quantization, using the best available runtime evidence. Historical baseline selected; model picker is focused on current-market choices.

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29 ranked MacsUse the strongest current runtime evidence for each row.27 other historical models hiddenBaselinesStatic paths cover only canonical model pages; sort and quantization stay as query state.

Historical baseline selected: Phi-4 14B. Default model choices remain current-market; other historical models stay hidden.

Rank	Mac	Score	Quant	Tok/s	Runtime	Fits	Headroom	Context	Evidence	Price	Why it ranks here
1	Mac Studio M3 Ultra 256GB	460	8bit	38.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 38.0 tok/s · MLX · Estimated	MLX	Fits	241.5 GB	16k	Estimated	$7,499	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 38.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 241.5 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
2	Mac Pro M2 Ultra 192GB	396	8bit	38.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 38.0 tok/s · MLX · Estimated	MLX	Fits	177.5 GB	16k	Estimated	$6,999	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 38.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 177.5 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
3	Mac Studio M4 Max 128GB	332	8bit	38.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 38.0 tok/s · MLX · Estimated	MLX	Fits	113.5 GB	16k	Estimated	$4,499	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 38.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 113.5 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
4	MacBook Pro M5 Max 128GB 16-inch	332	8bit	38.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 38.0 tok/s · MLX · Estimated	MLX	Fits	113.5 GB	16k	Estimated	$5,399	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 38.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 113.5 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
5	MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB 16-inch	332	8bit	38.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 38.0 tok/s · MLX · Estimated	MLX	Fits	113.5 GB	16k	Estimated	$5,999	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 38.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 113.5 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
6	Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB	300	8bit	38.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 38.0 tok/s · MLX · Estimated	MLX	Fits	81.5 GB	16k	Estimated	$3,999	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 38.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 81.5 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
7	Mac Studio M4 Max 64GB	268	8bit	38.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 38.0 tok/s · MLX · Estimated	MLX	Fits	49.5 GB	16k	Estimated	$2,999	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 38.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 49.5 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
8	MacBook Pro M4 Max 64GB 16-inch	268	8bit	38.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 38.0 tok/s · MLX · Estimated	MLX	Fits	49.5 GB	16k	Estimated	$4,499	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 38.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 49.5 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
9	Mac Mini M4 Pro 48GB	252	8bit	38.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 38.0 tok/s · MLX · Estimated	MLX	Fits	33.5 GB	16k	Estimated	$1,599	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 38.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 33.5 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
10	MacBook Pro M4 Pro 48GB 14-inch	252	8bit	38.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 38.0 tok/s · MLX · Estimated	MLX	Fits	33.5 GB	16k	Estimated	$2,499	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 38.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 33.5 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
11	Mac Studio M4 Max 48GB	252	8bit	38.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 38.0 tok/s · MLX · Estimated	MLX	Fits	33.5 GB	16k	Estimated	$2,499	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 38.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 33.5 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
12	MacBook Pro M4 Pro 48GB 16-inch	252	8bit	38.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 38.0 tok/s · MLX · Estimated	MLX	Fits	33.5 GB	16k	Estimated	$2,999	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 38.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 33.5 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
13	MacBook Pro M4 Max 48GB 14-inch	252	8bit	38.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 38.0 tok/s · MLX · Estimated	MLX	Fits	33.5 GB	16k	Estimated	$3,499	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 38.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 33.5 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
14	MacBook Pro M4 Max 48GB 16-inch	252	8bit	38.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 38.0 tok/s · MLX · Estimated	MLX	Fits	33.5 GB	16k	Estimated	$3,999	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 38.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 33.5 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
15	Mac Studio M4 Max 36GB	240	8bit	38.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 38.0 tok/s · MLX · Estimated	MLX	Fits	21.5 GB	16k	Estimated	$1,999	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 38.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 21.5 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
16	MacBook Pro M4 Max 36GB 14-inch	240	8bit	38.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 38.0 tok/s · MLX · Estimated	MLX	Fits	21.5 GB	16k	Estimated	$2,999	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 38.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 21.5 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
17	MacBook Pro M4 Max 36GB 16-inch	240	8bit	38.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 38.0 tok/s · MLX · Estimated	MLX	Fits	21.5 GB	16k	Estimated	$3,499	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 38.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 21.5 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
18	Mac Mini M4 32GB	236	8bit	38.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 38.0 tok/s · MLX · Estimated	MLX	Fits	17.5 GB	16k	Estimated	$799	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 38.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 17.5 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
19	MacBook Air M4 32GB 13-inch	236	8bit	38.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 38.0 tok/s · MLX · Estimated	MLX	Fits	17.5 GB	16k	Estimated	$1,499	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 38.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 17.5 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
20	MacBook Air M4 32GB 15-inch	236	8bit	38.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 38.0 tok/s · MLX · Estimated	MLX	Fits	17.5 GB	16k	Estimated	$1,699	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 38.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 17.5 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
21	Mac Mini M4 24GB	228	8bit	38.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 38.0 tok/s · MLX · Estimated	MLX	Fits	9.5 GB	16k	Estimated	$599	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 38.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 9.5 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
22	MacBook Air M4 24GB 13-inch	228	8bit	38.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 38.0 tok/s · MLX · Estimated	MLX	Fits	9.5 GB	16k	Estimated	$1,299	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 38.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 9.5 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
23	Mac Mini M4 Pro 24GB	228	8bit	38.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 38.0 tok/s · MLX · Estimated	MLX	Fits	9.5 GB	16k	Estimated	$1,399	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 38.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 9.5 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
24	MacBook Air M4 24GB 15-inch	228	8bit	38.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 38.0 tok/s · MLX · Estimated	MLX	Fits	9.5 GB	16k	Estimated	$1,499	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 38.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 9.5 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
25	MacBook Pro M4 Pro 24GB 14-inch	228	8bit	38.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 38.0 tok/s · MLX · Estimated	MLX	Fits	9.5 GB	16k	Estimated	$1,999	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 38.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 9.5 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
26	MacBook Pro M4 Pro 24GB 16-inch	228	8bit	38.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 38.0 tok/s · MLX · Estimated	MLX	Fits	9.5 GB	16k	Estimated	$2,499	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 38.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 9.5 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
27	Mac Mini M4 16GB	216	Q6_K	38.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: Q6_K · 38.0 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	3.9 GB	16k	Estimated	$499	Q6_K is the current best practical quantization. 38.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 3.9 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
28	MacBook Air M4 16GB 13-inch	216	Q6_K	38.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: Q6_K · 38.0 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	3.9 GB	16k	Estimated	$1,099	Q6_K is the current best practical quantization. 38.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 3.9 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
29	MacBook Air M4 16GB 15-inch	216	Q6_K	38.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: Q6_K · 38.0 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	3.9 GB	16k	Estimated	$1,299	Q6_K is the current best practical quantization. 38.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 3.9 GB headroom remains at this quantization.

Phi-4 14B — ranking first, raw rows below

Start with the ranked Mac table above. Use the rest of this page to inspect raw Apple Silicon coverage and model metadata.

Quantizations observed: Q4_K - Medium

3Benchmark rows

3Chip tiers covered

62.0Fastest avg tok/s (M5 Max (64 GB))

—Minimum RAM observed

Quick take

Fastest published result is 62.0 tok/s on M5 Max (64 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.

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Catalog record

14BTotal params

DenseActive params

16,384Context window

2024-12-12Release date

This is a reference-only model record. It remains useful for historical benchmarks, migration checks, and audit context, but it is excluded from current frontier packs.

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

Generation of Harmful Content: Developers should assess outputs for their context and use available safety classifiers or custom solutions appropriate for their use case.

Official source · Raw model card

Runtime support mentioned

Transformers

Official specs

Architecture: Dense decoder-only Transformer.
Total parameters: 14B.
Context: 16K tokens.
License: MIT.

Official takeaways

Generation of Harmful Content: Developers should assess outputs for their context and use available safety classifiers or custom solutions appropriate for their use case.
English language varieties with less representation in the training data might experience worse performance than standard American English.
Quantitative evaluation was conducted with multiple open-source safety benchmarks and in-house tools utilizing adversarial conversation simulation.
Given the nature of the training data, phi-4 is best suited for prompts using the chat format as follows: To understand the capabilities, we compare phi-4 with a set of models over OpenAI’s SimpleEval benchmark.

Official model cards describe intent, capabilities, and supported stacks. They do not prove Apple Silicon speed by themselves.

Field reality on Apple Silicon

Phi-4 14B: 1 practitioner claim; 1 captured from fetched artifacts; hardware mentions: M4, Mac, Mac Mini; themes: apple_silicon_viability, coding_quality, operational_caution; includes operational caveats.

3Benchmark rows

0Field reports

1Practitioner signals

Sparse BenchmarksEvidence status

What practitioners keep saying

One operator explicitly cites running Phi-4 14B on an M4 mini as a reasonable local setup for the price and power draw.
The thread is useful because it frames Phi-4 as the practical smaller-model fallback when bigger Apple-Silicon dreams hit bandwidth limits.

Apple Silicon field sources

r/LocalLLaMA
2025-03-30 · Mac mini M4
Phi-4 14B is still part of the real Apple-Silicon working set on M4 mini-class machines because its price-to-speed tradeoff remains attractive.

Hardware mentioned in reports

M4MacMac Mini

What would improve confidence

Upgrade To First Party Measurement

Current published coverage

Published chip coverage includes M5 Max (64 GB), M4 (16 GB), M2 (16 GB). Fastest published row is 62.0 tok/s on M5 Max (64 GB) at Q4_K - Medium.

M5 Max (64 GB)M4 (16 GB)M2 (16 GB)

Related Phi-4 models with published pages: Phi-4 Mini Instruct 3.8B

Raw benchmark rows for Phi-4 14B

Rows stay below the ranking because this page is answer-first. Use them to inspect exact chips, quantizations, runtimes, and sources.

Chip	Quant	RAM req.	Context	Avg tok/s	Prompt tok/s	Runtime	Source
M5 Max (64 GB)	Q4_K - Medium	—	—	62.0 tok/s	—	MLX	ref
M4 (16 GB)	Q4_K - Medium	—	—	38.0 tok/s	—	Ollama	ref
M2 (16 GB)	Q4_K - Medium	—	—	28.0 tok/s	—	MLX	ref

Best Macs for Phi-4 14B

Ordered by fastest published tok/s on the chip family in each Mac. Click through for the full machine page.

MacBook Pro M5 Max 128GB 16-inch — 62.0 tok/s Mac Mini M4 16GB — 38.0 tok/s Mac Mini M4 24GB — 38.0 tok/s Mac Mini M4 32GB — 38.0 tok/s MacBook Air M4 16GB 13-inch — 38.0 tok/s MacBook Air M4 24GB 13-inch — 38.0 tok/s

Chips with published results for Phi-4 14B

M5 Max (64 GB)M4 (16 GB)M2 (16 GB)

Data

benchmarks.json — full dataset · models.json — model summaries · benchmarks.csv — CSV export

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