Canonical Rankings

Best Macs for this model

Phi-4 Mini Instruct 3.8B 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 Mini Instruct 3.8B. 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	749	8bit	108.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 108.0 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	251.0 GB	131k	Estimated	$7,499	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 108.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 251.0 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
2	Mac Pro M2 Ultra 192GB	685	8bit	108.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 108.0 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	187.0 GB	131k	Estimated	$6,999	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 108.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 187.0 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
3	Mac Studio M4 Max 128GB	621	8bit	108.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 108.0 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	123.0 GB	131k	Estimated	$4,499	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 108.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 123.0 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
4	MacBook Pro M5 Max 128GB 16-inch	621	8bit	108.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 108.0 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	123.0 GB	131k	Estimated	$5,399	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 108.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 123.0 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
5	MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB 16-inch	621	8bit	108.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 108.0 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	123.0 GB	131k	Estimated	$5,999	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 108.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 123.0 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
6	Mac Studio M4 Max 48GB	609	8bit	125.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 125.0 tok/s · MLX · Estimated	MLX	Fits	43.0 GB	131k	Estimated	$2,499	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 125.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 43.0 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
7	MacBook Pro M4 Max 48GB 14-inch	609	8bit	125.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 125.0 tok/s · MLX · Estimated	MLX	Fits	43.0 GB	131k	Estimated	$3,499	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 125.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 43.0 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
8	MacBook Pro M4 Max 48GB 16-inch	609	8bit	125.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 125.0 tok/s · MLX · Estimated	MLX	Fits	43.0 GB	131k	Estimated	$3,999	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 125.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 43.0 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
9	Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB	589	8bit	108.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 108.0 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	91.0 GB	131k	Estimated	$3,999	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 108.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 91.0 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
10	Mac Studio M4 Max 64GB	557	8bit	108.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 108.0 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	59.0 GB	131k	Estimated	$2,999	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 108.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 59.0 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
11	MacBook Pro M4 Max 64GB 16-inch	557	8bit	108.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 108.0 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	59.0 GB	131k	Estimated	$4,499	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 108.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 59.0 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
12	Mac Mini M4 Pro 48GB	541	8bit	108.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 108.0 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	43.0 GB	131k	Estimated	$1,599	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 108.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 43.0 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
13	MacBook Pro M4 Pro 48GB 14-inch	541	8bit	108.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 108.0 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	43.0 GB	131k	Estimated	$2,499	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 108.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 43.0 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
14	MacBook Pro M4 Pro 48GB 16-inch	541	8bit	108.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 108.0 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	43.0 GB	131k	Estimated	$2,999	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 108.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 43.0 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
15	Mac Studio M4 Max 36GB	529	8bit	108.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 108.0 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	31.0 GB	131k	Estimated	$1,999	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 108.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 31.0 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
16	MacBook Pro M4 Max 36GB 14-inch	529	8bit	108.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 108.0 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	31.0 GB	131k	Estimated	$2,999	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 108.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 31.0 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
17	MacBook Pro M4 Max 36GB 16-inch	529	8bit	108.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 108.0 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	31.0 GB	131k	Estimated	$3,499	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 108.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 31.0 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
18	Mac Mini M4 32GB	525	8bit	108.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 108.0 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	27.0 GB	131k	Estimated	$799	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 108.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 27.0 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
19	MacBook Air M4 32GB 13-inch	525	8bit	108.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 108.0 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	27.0 GB	131k	Estimated	$1,499	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 108.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 27.0 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
20	MacBook Air M4 32GB 15-inch	525	8bit	108.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 108.0 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	27.0 GB	131k	Estimated	$1,699	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 108.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 27.0 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
21	Mac Mini M4 24GB	517	8bit	108.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 108.0 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	19.0 GB	131k	Estimated	$599	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 108.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 19.0 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
22	MacBook Air M4 24GB 13-inch	517	8bit	108.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 108.0 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	19.0 GB	131k	Estimated	$1,299	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 108.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 19.0 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
23	Mac Mini M4 Pro 24GB	517	8bit	108.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 108.0 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	19.0 GB	131k	Estimated	$1,399	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 108.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 19.0 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
24	MacBook Air M4 24GB 15-inch	517	8bit	108.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 108.0 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	19.0 GB	131k	Estimated	$1,499	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 108.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 19.0 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
25	MacBook Pro M4 Pro 24GB 14-inch	517	8bit	108.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 108.0 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	19.0 GB	131k	Estimated	$1,999	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 108.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 19.0 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
26	MacBook Pro M4 Pro 24GB 16-inch	517	8bit	108.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 108.0 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	19.0 GB	131k	Estimated	$2,499	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 108.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 19.0 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
27	Mac Mini M4 16GB	509	8bit	108.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 108.0 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	11.0 GB	78k	Estimated	$499	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 108.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 11.0 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
28	MacBook Air M4 16GB 13-inch	509	8bit	108.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 108.0 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	11.0 GB	78k	Estimated	$1,099	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 108.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 11.0 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
29	MacBook Air M4 16GB 15-inch	509	8bit	108.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 108.0 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	11.0 GB	78k	Estimated	$1,299	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 108.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 11.0 GB headroom remains at this quantization.

Phi-4 Mini Instruct 3.8B 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, Q8_0

7Benchmark rows

6Chip tiers covered

142.0Fastest avg tok/s (M5 Max (64 GB))

—Minimum RAM observed

Quick take

Fastest published result is 142.0 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 7 external benchmarks; no lab runs yet.

Published runtimes: MLX, Ollama.

Need the best Mac for this model? Use Buy Need a setup-first answer? Use Run Checking whether it fits? Use Fit Browse Macs by exact hardware Need the full audit trail? Use Bench Comparing against rented GPUs? Use AI Datacenter Index

Best Mac shortlist

These are ranked by the fastest published Phi-4 Mini Instruct 3.8B result available for each Mac's chip family. Use them as the search answer, then open the machine page before buying.

Fastest published Mac-family result

MacBook Pro M5 Max 128GB 16-inch maps to 142.0 tok/s from the strongest published chip-family row for Phi-4 Mini Instruct 3.8B.

Open MacBook Pro M5 Max 128GB 16-inch · Audit evidence

Shortlist rank 2

MacBook Pro M4 Max 36GB 14-inch maps to 125.0 tok/s from the strongest published chip-family row for Phi-4 Mini Instruct 3.8B.

Open MacBook Pro M4 Max 36GB 14-inch · Audit evidence

Shortlist rank 3

MacBook Pro M4 Max 48GB 14-inch maps to 125.0 tok/s from the strongest published chip-family row for Phi-4 Mini Instruct 3.8B.

Open MacBook Pro M4 Max 48GB 14-inch · Audit evidence

Model search answers

How fast is Phi-4 Mini Instruct 3.8B on Mac?

Phi-4 Mini Instruct 3.8B currently has a fastest published Mac result of 142.0 tok/s on M5 Max (64 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 Phi-4 Mini Instruct 3.8B?

MacBook Pro M5 Max 128GB 16-inch is the fastest published Mac-family answer for Phi-4 Mini Instruct 3.8B on this page right now, at 142.0 tok/s from its chip family. Treat that as a published benchmark starting point, not a universal buying recommendation.

Does Phi-4 Mini Instruct 3.8B fit on Apple Silicon?

Phi-4 Mini Instruct 3.8B 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

3.8BTotal params

DenseActive params

131,072Context window

2025-02-26Release 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

Phi-4-mini-instruct is a lightweight open model built upon synthetic data and filtered publicly available websites - with a focus on high-quality, reasoning dense data. The model belongs to the Phi-4 model family and supports 128K token context length.

Official source · Raw model card

Runtime support mentioned

vLLMTransformers

Official specs

Architecture: Phi-4-mini-instruct has 3.8B parameters and is a dense decoder-only Transformer model. When compared with Phi-3.5-mini, the major changes with Phi-4-mini-instruct are 200K vocabulary, grouped-query attention, and shared input and output embedding.
Max input: 128K tokens.
Release: February 2025.

Official takeaways

The model provides uses for general purpose AI systems and applications which require: 1) Memory/compute constrained environments 2) Latency bound scenarios 3) Strong reasoning (especially math and logic).
Various evaluation techniques including red teaming, adversarial conversation simulations, and multilingual safety evaluation benchmark datasets were leveraged to evaluate Phi-4 models’ propensity to produce undesirable…
The model belongs to the Phi-4 model family and supports 128K token context length.
Phi-4-mini-instruct is a lightweight open model built upon synthetic data and filtered publicly available websites - with a focus on high-quality, reasoning dense data.

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

Field reality on Apple Silicon

No structured Apple Silicon field speed reports yet. Phi-4 Mini Instruct 3.8B. It is not yet published in the current frontier packs. Benchmark evidence includes 7 Apple Silicon benchmark rows. 1 official model brief captured. 3 fetched artifacts. No curated practitioner signals yet. No structured Apple Silicon field speed reports yet.

7Benchmark rows

0Field reports

0Practitioner signals

Sparse BenchmarksEvidence status

Current published coverage

Published chip coverage includes M5 Max (64 GB), M4 Max (48 GB), M4 Pro (24 GB), M3 (16 GB), M2 (8 GB) plus 1 more chip tier. Fastest published row is 142.0 tok/s on M5 Max (64 GB) at Q4_K - Medium.

M5 Max (64 GB)M4 Max (48 GB)M4 Pro (24 GB)M3 (16 GB)M2 (8 GB)M1 (16 GB)

Related Phi-4 Mini Instruct models with published pages: Phi-4 14B

Raw benchmark rows for Phi-4 Mini Instruct 3.8B

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	—	—	142.0 tok/s	—	Ollama	ref
M4 Max (48 GB)	Q4_K - Medium	—	—	125.0 tok/s	—	MLX	ref
M5 Max (64 GB)	Q8_0	—	—	112.0 tok/s	—	MLX	ref
M4 Pro (24 GB)	Q4_K - Medium	—	—	108.0 tok/s	—	Ollama	ref
M3 (16 GB)	Q4_K - Medium	—	—	95.0 tok/s	—	MLX	ref
M2 (8 GB)	Q4_K - Medium	—	—	72.0 tok/s	—	Ollama	ref
M1 (16 GB)	Q4_K - Medium	—	—	58.0 tok/s	—	Ollama	ref

Chips with published results for Phi-4 Mini Instruct 3.8B

M5 Max (64 GB)M4 Max (48 GB)M4 Pro (24 GB)M3 (16 GB)M2 (8 GB)M1 (16 GB)

Data

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

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