Can the Apple M4 Max (64 GB) run Granite 4.1 30B?

Yes, it runs well

Runs well. At Q4_K_M it needs about 24.2 GB of 48.0 GB usable, with an estimated speed of 20.0 tok/s.

Best quant: Q4_K_M
Generation speed: 20.0 tok/s
Prompt processing: 395 tok/s
First token (1K prompt): 2.6 s
Largest safe context: 96K

Best app to run it on the Apple M4 Max (64 GB)

On macOS

LM Studio

Desktop app · runs on llama.cpp, MLX · use the MLX build

Runs the MLX build, typically up to 10% faster than GGUF for a model with 28.9B active parameters on Apple silicon.
Point-and-click: search, download and chat in one window.

Open Granite 4.1 30B in LM Studio

Ollama One command with Ollama’s own build of this model.
llama.cpp Usually the first to support new model architectures.

Want an agent? Granite 4.1 30B supports tool use, so you can pair a llama.cpp or MLX LM server with one of these. Apps that run on this computer come first.

Coding agents

Personal assistants

How we choose: the files published for this model, your operating system and GPU, whether it fits fully in memory, and published speed tests (MLX vs llama.cpp on Apple silicon, vLLM vs llama.cpp vs Ollama on NVIDIA). Details.

Download Granite 4.1 30B

Recommended for the Apple M4 Max (64 GB): Q4_K_M. Every other quantization has its own download link in the table below.

Quickest · Ollama

One command downloads a ready-to-run version and starts a chat.

Get Ollama at ollama.com/download (opens in a new tab) · model page (opens in a new tab)

ollama run granite4.1:30b-q4_K_M

Quantized files · GGUF

Works in LM Studio, llama.cpp, Jan and Ollama. No sign-in needed.

Download the Q4_K_M file (opens in a new tab)

huggingface.co/ibm-granite/granite-4.1-30b-GGUF (opens in a new tab)

ollama run hf.co/ibm-granite/granite-4.1-30b-GGUF:Q4_K_M

Original weights · Hugging Face

Full-precision files from IBM, for fine-tuning, vLLM, Transformers.

huggingface.co/ibm-granite/granite-4.1-30b (opens in a new tab)

No sign-in needed.

Official repo · GitHub

Reference code, inference scripts and docs from IBM. The weights themselves download from Hugging Face.

github.com/ibm-granite/granite-4.1-language-models (opens in a new tab)

git clone https://github.com/ibm-granite/granite-4.1-language-models

Links checked 1 day ago against Hugging Face, Ollama and GitHub.

How it’s rated

Quality 68Good quality (B) · 68 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 78/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.: How capable the model itself is at Q4_K_M, from its editorial quality tier scaled by the quantization or precision. It’s the same on any hardware that runs this variant. Scale: A+ 85+ · A 70+ · B 55+ · C 40+ · D under 40.
Runs Runs well: How well it runs on the Apple M4 Max (64 GB): speed, capped by how well it fits in memory. Runs great: 30+ tokens/s (or near the image, video or decision speed target) · Runs well: 10+ tokens/s · Slow: 3+ tokens/s · Very slow: under 3 · Won’t run: doesn’t fit even with offload. A tight fit or RAM offload caps it at Runs well; heavy offload caps it at Slow.

Match score

To order lists, each result also gets a match score out of 100 from four parts. It favors the most capable model that still runs well.

Model qualityEditorial quality tier of the model, scaled by the quantization or precision used.	30.8 / 45
Memory fitFull marks when the model fits in the share of unified memory the GPU can use; fewer when it goes past that limit.	25.0 / 25
SpeedGeneration speed against a 40 tokens/s target for LLMs, or render time against a target for image and video.	10.6 / 15
Memory useRewards using the memory you have, so a bigger, better variant beats a tiny one that leaves most memory idle.	11.6 / 15
Match score	78.0 / 100

The match score orders results; it is not shown as a grade. Quality and Runs are the two ratings in the tables.

Every quantization on the Apple M4 Max (64 GB)

Quant	Memory needed	Available	Speed	Runs	Quality	Download
`Q2_K`	18.1 GB	48.0 GB	32.8 tok/s	Runs great	50Fair quality (C) · 50 of 100: how capable the model is at Q2_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 69/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF (opens in a new tab)
`Q3_K_M`	20.7 GB	48.0 GB	25.8 tok/s	Runs well	60Good quality (B) · 60 of 100: how capable the model is at Q3_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 74/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF (opens in a new tab)
`Q4_K_M`	24.2 GB	48.0 GB	20.0 tok/s	Runs well	68Good quality (B) · 68 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 78/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF (opens in a new tab)
`Q5_K_M`	27.1 GB	48.0 GB	16.5 tok/s	Runs well	69Good quality (B) · 69 of 100: how capable the model is at Q5_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 79/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF (opens in a new tab)
`Q6_K`	30.3 GB	48.0 GB	13.9 tok/s	Runs well	71Great quality (A) · 71 of 100: how capable the model is at Q6_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 80/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF (opens in a new tab)
`Q8_0`	37.2 GB	48.0 GB	10.2 tok/s	Runs well	72Great quality (A) · 72 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 79/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF (opens in a new tab)
`F16`	64.3 GB	48.0 GB	—	Won't run	72Great quality (A) · 72 of 100: how capable the model is at F16, whatever it runs on. Match score 9/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF · part 1 of 5 (opens in a new tab) Original weights (opens in a new tab)

Memory figures assume 8K of context. Longer conversations or documents grow the KV cache.

Other hardware that runs it

69Good quality (B) · 69 of 100: how capable the model is at Q5_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 86/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Q5_K_M · 62.9 tok/s · Runs great
68Good quality (B) · 68 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 84/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Q4_K_M · 42.9 tok/s · Runs well (tight fit)
68Good quality (B) · 68 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 84/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Q4_K_M · 39.8 tok/s · Runs well (tight fit)
68Good quality (B) · 68 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 83/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX Q4_K_M · 35.1 tok/s · Runs well (tight fit)
72Great quality (A) · 72 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 81/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Q8_0 · 38.8 tok/s · Runs great
50Fair quality (C) · 50 of 100: how capable the model is at Q2_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 76/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER Q2_K · 46.9 tok/s · Runs well (tight fit)

Estimates come from published hardware specs and our open formulas, not from running the model on your machine. Real speed varies with runtime, drivers and settings. Numbers marked “Measured” come from a linked benchmark.