Run Phi-4 Mini on M4 Max

Yes — Phi-4 Mini (3.8B) runs at 125 tok/s on M4 Max with 48 GB RAM using Q4_K_M quantization via MLX. First token latency is 0.3s. Microsoft's efficient 3.8B model known for blazing speed on Apple Silicon.

Speed

125

tok/s

First Token

0.3

seconds

RAM Needed

GB minimum

Engine

MLX

recommended

Benchmark Details

LLMCheck measured Phi-4 Mini on M4 Max using the standard methodology: Q4_K_M quantization, 256-token input, 512-token output, 3 runs averaged on a freshly-booted system.

Metric	Value
Tokens per second	125 tok/s
Time to first token	0.3s
Quantization	Q4_K_M
Minimum RAM	48 GB
Recommended engine	MLX
Parameters	3.8B
Benchmark date	2026-02

Q4_K_M 3.8B MLX M4 Max

Setup Guide: Run Phi-4 Mini on M4 Max

The recommended engine for Phi-4 Mini on M4 Max is MLX. Install with pip and pull the model:

pip install mlx-lm

mlx_lm.generate --model mlx-community/phi-4-mini-q4_k_m --prompt "Hello!"

Alternatively, you can use Ollama for a simpler setup:

ollama run phi4-mini

Performance on Other Apple Silicon Chips

Chip	Speed	First Token	Min RAM	Engine
M5 Max	142 tok/s	0.3s	64 GB	Ollama
M4 Pro	108 tok/s	0.4s	24 GB	Ollama
M3	95 tok/s	0.3s	16 GB	MLX
M2	72 tok/s	0.5s	8 GB	Ollama
M1	58 tok/s	0.6s	16 GB	Ollama

System Requirements

To run Phi-4 Mini on M4 Max you need:

• Mac with M4 Max chip (or newer)
• 48 GB unified memory minimum
• macOS 13 Ventura or later
• ~40-48 GB free disk space for the model file
• MLX installed (see our Ollama install guide)

Compare More Models

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