Run Phi-4 Mini on M4 Pro

Yes — Phi-4 Mini (3.8B) runs at 108 tok/s on M4 Pro with 24 GB RAM using Q4_K_M quantization via Ollama. First token latency is 0.4s. Microsoft's efficient 3.8B model known for blazing speed on Apple Silicon.

Speed
108
tok/s
First Token
0.4
seconds
RAM Needed
24
GB minimum
Engine
Ollama
recommended

Benchmark Details

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

MetricValue
Tokens per second108 tok/s
Time to first token0.4s
QuantizationQ4_K_M
Minimum RAM24 GB
Recommended engineOllama
Parameters3.8B
Benchmark date2026-03

Q4_K_M 3.8B Ollama M4 Pro

Setup Guide: Run Phi-4 Mini on M4 Pro

The recommended engine for Phi-4 Mini on M4 Pro is Ollama. Install Ollama, then pull the model:

ollama run phi4-mini

Ollama handles quantization automatically — it will download the Q4_K_M variant (~24 GB) and start an interactive chat session.

Performance on Other Apple Silicon Chips

ChipSpeedFirst TokenMin RAMEngine
M5 Max 142 tok/s 0.3s 64 GB Ollama
M4 Max 125 tok/s 0.3s 48 GB MLX
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 Pro you need:

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