Mistral 7B on Apple M2 · 16GB

✅ Runs (tight) — Mistral 7B @ Q6_K
Mistral 7B 7B at Q6_K needs ~7.0 GB (weights 5.5 GB + KV 1.0 GB + overhead 512 MB @ 8K ctx) of your 8.2 GB usable (of 16.0 GB unified memory) — fits, but little headroom — close other apps or trim context. Expect ~8–14 tok/s (usable).
context @ Q6_K: comfortable to 4K · runs to its full 32K
quantneedsspeed
~ Q8_08.7 GB~0.9–1 tok/s (slow)
✓ Q6_K7.0 GB~8–14 tok/s (usable)
✓ Q5_K_M6.3 GB~10–17 tok/s (usable)
✓ Q4_K_M5.6 GB~11–19 tok/s (usable)
$runlocal install mistral:7b
runlocal verdict card
download card share on x share on reddit drop it in your model-drop post
Mistral 7B: Runs (tight)
for your own README — links back here

Same model, other machines: Apple M1 · Apple M1 Pro · Apple M3 Pro · Apple M2 Pro · Apple M4 Pro · Apple M3 Max

Also runs on a Apple M2: DeepSeek-R1 (distill) · Qwen3 · Llama 3.1 · Qwen2.5 · Gemma 3

Best models for a Apple M2 · 16GB →

Architecturally similar

These share Mistral 7B's KV-cache geometry — they size memory the same way, so here's how they fit on a Apple M2 · 16GB too:

modelsharesverdict here
Qwen2.5-Coder 8kv/128hd ✅ Runs (tight)
Llama 3.2 8kv/128hd ✅ Runs comfortably
Llama 3.3 8kv/128hd ❌ Won't fit
Mistral Small 3 8kv/128hd 🐢 CPU-only (slow)
Mistral Nemo 8kv/128hd 🐢 CPU-only (slow)
Codestral 8kv/128hd 🐢 CPU-only (slow)
Llama 3.2 Vision 8kv/128hd ✅ Runs (tight)
Mixtral 8x7B 8kv/128hd ❌ Won't fit

…and 7 more — see the Mistral 7B page.

Check any combo yourself: open the checker →