Run Inkling-Small on M5 Ultra

Yes — Inkling-Small (276B) runs at 45 tok/s on M5 Ultra with 256 GB RAM using Q4_K_M quantization via MLX. First token latency is Nones. A capable open-source LLM with 276B parameters.

Speed
estimated45
tok/s
First Token
estimatedNone
seconds
RAM Needed
256
GB minimum
Engine
MLX
recommended
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Benchmark Details

The LLMCheck index estimates Inkling-Small on M5 Ultra using our published methodology: Q4_K_M quantization, memory-bandwidth scaling, and cross-referenced third-party benchmarks where available. Figures are transparent estimates — own this config? Submit a real benchmark →

MetricValue
Tokens per second45 tok/s
Time to first tokenNones
QuantizationQ4_K_M
Minimum RAM256 GB
Recommended engineMLX
Parameters276B
Benchmark date2026-08

Q4_K_M 276B MLX M5 Ultra

Setup Guide: Run Inkling-Small on M5 Ultra

The recommended engine for Inkling-Small on M5 Ultra is MLX. Install with pip and pull the model:

pip install mlx-lm
mlx_lm.generate --model mlx-community/inkling-small-q4_k_m --prompt "Hello!"

Alternatively, you can use Ollama for a simpler setup:

ollama run inkling-small

Performance on Other Apple Silicon Chips

ChipSpeedFirst TokenMin RAMEngine
M3 Ultra 18 tok/s 0.9s 512 GB MLX

System Requirements

To run Inkling-Small on M5 Ultra you need:

🛒 Get a Mac that runs Inkling-Small

Inkling-Small needs about 256 GB of unified memory. These current Apple Silicon Macs have the headroom to run it comfortably:

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