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Can I run Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct-4bit on a Mac with 16 GB?

Yes

Its published weights (4.52 GB) fit in the 10.7 GB a Mac with 16 GB can use, with room for ≈ 46K tokens of context.

Full analysis of Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct-4bit Everything that runs on Mac with 16 GB Get the weights on Hugging Face
hf download mlx-community/Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct-4bit

Files and context on Mac with 16 GB

Each file of Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct-4bit (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.

FileSizeOn Mac with 16 GB Context (16-bit)Context (8-bit)
As published4.52 GBFits46K92K

Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct-4bit 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.