Run Phi-4 14B on M6

Yes — Phi-4 14B (14B) runs at 17 tok/s on M6 with 16 GB RAM using Q4_K_M quantization via MLX. First token latency is Nones. Microsoft's 14B Phi-4 model with strong math and coding performance.

Speed
estimated17
tok/s
First Token
estimatedNone
seconds
RAM Needed
16
GB minimum
Engine
MLX
recommended
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Benchmark Details

The LLMCheck index estimates Phi-4 14B on M6 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 second17 tok/s
Time to first tokenNones
QuantizationQ4_K_M
Minimum RAM16 GB
Recommended engineMLX
Parameters14B
Benchmark date2026-08

Q4_K_M 14B MLX M6

Setup Guide: Run Phi-4 14B on M6

The recommended engine for Phi-4 14B on M6 is MLX. Install with pip and pull the model:

pip install mlx-lm
mlx_lm.generate --model mlx-community/phi-4-14b-q4_k_m --prompt "Hello!"

Alternatively, you can use Ollama for a simpler setup:

ollama run phi4:14b

Performance on Other Apple Silicon Chips

ChipSpeedFirst TokenMin RAMEngine
M5 Max 55 tok/s 0.6s 64 GB MLX
M4 12 tok/s 1.0s 16 GB Ollama
M2 10 tok/s 1.3s 16 GB MLX

System Requirements

To run Phi-4 14B on M6 you need:

🛒 Get a Mac that runs Phi-4 14B

Phi-4 14B needs about 16 GB of unified memory. These current Apple Silicon Macs have the headroom to run it comfortably:

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