Can I run Qwen3.8-9B-Distill-GGUF on a Mac with 16 GB?

Yes, just

Its Q8_0 file (9.79 GB) fits in the 10.7 GB a Mac with 16 GB can use, with room for ≈ 25K tokens of context.

Full analysis of Qwen3.8-9B-Distill-GGUF Everything that runs on Mac with 16 GB Get the Q8_0 file on Hugging Face

ollama run hf.co/empero-ai/Qwen3.8-9B-Distill-GGUF:Q8_0

Files and context on Mac with 16 GB

Each file of Qwen3.8-9B-Distill-GGUF (and of GGUF versions the site has analyzed), and how much context fits next to it, with the context cache in 16-bit or 8-bit.

File	Size	On Mac with 16 GB	Context (16-bit)	Context (8-bit)
BF16	18.4 GB	Doesn't fit	—	—
Q8_0	9.79 GB	Tight	25K	49K
Q6_K	7.56 GB	Fits	91K	182K
Q5_K_M	6.64 GB	Fits	118K	237K
Q4_K_M	5.78 GB	Fits	144K	256K

Qwen3.8-9B-Distill-GGUF on other hardware

Popular models that run on Mac with 16 GB

Assumes 67% of the Mac's memory is usable (macOS's default limit for the GPU; it can be raised) and at least 4K tokens of context for one conversation, with the context cache in 16-bit unless noted. Fits leaves at least 20% of that memory for context; Tight leaves less.