Apple M2 (8GB)
The Apple M2 (8GB) has 8 GB VRAM and 100 GB/s memory bandwidth. It can run 20 of our 70 tracked models natively in VRAM at 8k context.
With 8 GB LPDDR5, the Apple M2 (8GB) is a laptop-tier GPU that can run 20 models natively. It's best for smaller models under 8B parameters.
Apple M2 (8GB): 8GB at 100 GB/s — base M2.
7B at Q4 tight. ~3-5 t/s for 7B.
8GB minimum.
| Vendor | Apple |
| Architecture | Apple M2 |
| CPU cores | 8 (4P + 4E) |
| VRAM | 8 GB (unified) |
| Memory type | LPDDR5 |
| Memory bandwidth | 100 GB/s |
| Compute backend | METAL |
| Tier | Laptop |
| Released | 2022 |
| Models (native) | 20 / 70 |
| Models (offload) | 0 / 70 |
Software: MLX gives the best performance on Apple Silicon; llama.cpp Metal backend is a solid alternative. Both are well-supported by Ollama.
Popular models for this GPU
Models this GPU runs natively in VRAM (20)
- Mistral Nemo 12B Instruct12.2B · MMLU-Pro 35.6Q2_K · ~24.9 t/s
- Gemma 3 12B Instruct12.2B · MMLU-Pro 60.6Q2_K · ~24.9 t/s
- Llama 3.1 8B Instruct8B · MMLU-Pro 48.3Q3_K_M · ~29.1 t/s
- DeepSeek R1 Distill Llama 8B8B · MMLU-Pro 41.0Q3_K_M · ~29.1 t/s
- Qwen3 8B8B · MMLU-Pro 56.7Q3_K_M · ~29.1 t/s
- Qwen 2.5 7B Instruct7.6B · MMLU-Pro 56.3Q4_K_M · ~23.4 t/s
- Mistral 7B Instruct v0.37.25B · MMLU-Pro 30.0Q4_K_M · ~24.5 t/s
- Gemma 3 4B Instruct4B · MMLU-Pro 43.6Q8_0 · ~25 t/s
- Gemma 4 E4B4B · MMLU-Pro 69.4Q8_0 · ~25 t/s
- Phi-3.5 Mini Instruct3.8B · MMLU-Pro 47.4Q3_K_M · ~61.2 t/s
- Llama 3.2 3B Instruct3.2B · MMLU-Pro 24.0Q8_0 · ~31.3 t/s
- Qwen 2.5 3B Instruct3.1B · MMLU-Pro 32.4Q8_0 · ~32.3 t/s
- Gemma 2 2B Instruct2.6B · MMLU-Pro 17.8Q8_0 · ~38.5 t/s
- Gemma 4 E2B2B · MMLU-Pro 60.0BF16 · ~25 t/s
- SmolLM2 1.7B Instruct1.7B · MMLU-Pro 19.0BF16 · ~29.4 t/s
- Qwen 2.5 1.5B Instruct1.5B · MMLU-Pro 16.8BF16 · ~33.3 t/s
- Llama 3.2 1B Instruct1.24B · MMLU-Pro 12.5FP32 · ~20.2 t/s
- Gemma 3 1B Instruct1B · MMLU-Pro 14.7FP32 · ~25 t/s
- Qwen 2.5 0.5B Instruct0.5B · MMLU-Pro 10.0FP32 · ~50 t/s
- SmolLM2 360M Instruct0.36B · MMLU-Pro 8.0FP32 · ~69.4 t/s
Too large for this GPU (50)
- Llama 3.3 70B Instruct
- Qwen 2.5 72B Instruct
- Qwen 2.5 32B Instruct
- Qwen 2.5 14B Instruct
- Qwen 2.5 Coder 32B Instruct
- Mistral Small 22B
- Mixtral 8x7B Instruct v0.1
- Gemma 2 27B Instruct
- Gemma 2 9B Instruct
- DeepSeek R1 Distill Llama 70B
- DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 32B
- Command-R 35B
- Yi 1.5 34B Chat
- Llama 3.1 70B Instruct
- Mixtral 8x22B Instruct v0.1
- Llama 3.1 405B Instruct
- Phi-4 14B Instruct
- DeepSeek V3 671B
- DeepSeek R1 671B
- Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct
- Gemma 3 27B Instruct
- Llama 4 Scout 109B
- Llama 4 Maverick 400B
- Qwen3 235B-A22B (MoE)
- Qwen3 30B-A3B (MoE)
- Qwen3 32B
- Qwen3 14B
- MiniMax M1 456B
- GPT-OSS 120B
- GPT-OSS 20B
- GLM-4.5 355B
- GLM-4.5 Air 106B
- GLM-4.6 355B
- GLM-4.6V 106B
- Nemotron 3 Nano 30B
- GLM-4.7 358B
- Gemma 4 31B
- Gemma 4 26B (MoE)
- Qwen 3.5 35B-A3B (MoE)
- Qwen 3.5 122B-A10B (MoE)
- MiniMax M2.5 229B
- GLM-5 744B
- MiniMax M2.7 229B
- Nemotron 3 Super 120B
- Qwen 3.6 27B
- Qwen 3.6 35B
- Kimi K2.6
- GLM-5.1 754B
- DeepSeek V4 Pro 1.6T
- DeepSeek V4 Flash 284B
Frequently asked questions
- How much VRAM does the Apple M2 (8GB) have?
- The Apple M2 (8GB) has 8 GB of LPDDR5 with 100 GB/s memory bandwidth (unified system memory, shared between CPU and GPU).
- What is the Apple M2 (8GB) best for?
- With 8 GB of VRAM, the Apple M2 (8GB) is best for running compact models (1B–8B) at low quantization, suitable for edge inference, prototyping, and lightweight tasks.
- What LLMs can the Apple M2 (8GB) run locally?
- The Apple M2 (8GB) can run 20 of the 70 open-weight models tracked by CanItRun natively in VRAM at 8k context. Top options include: Llama 3.1 8B Instruct at Q3_K_M, Llama 3.2 3B Instruct at Q8_0, Llama 3.2 1B Instruct at FP32.
- Can the Apple M2 (8GB) run Llama 3.3 70B Instruct?
- The Apple M2 (8GB) does not have enough VRAM to run Llama 3.3 70B Instruct. You would need more VRAM or a lower quantization level.
- Can the Apple M2 (8GB) run Qwen 3.6 27B?
- The Apple M2 (8GB) does not have enough VRAM to run Qwen 3.6 27B. You would need more VRAM or a lower quantization level.
- Can the Apple M2 (8GB) run Llama 3.1 8B Instruct?
- Yes. The Apple M2 (8GB) runs Llama 3.1 8B Instruct natively in VRAM at Q3_K_M quantization, achieving approximately 29.1 tokens per second.