text model · Ornith · macOS

Can I run Ornith 1.0 35B on Apple M4 (16GB)?

Compatibility verdict VRAM threshold engine

No, not enough memory would not load

No. Ornith 1.0 35B needs ~23.2 GB even at Q4_K_M, but Apple M4 (16GB) only has ~10.5 GB usable.

Needs ~23.2 GB Device usable ~10.5 GB

Needs ~23.2 GB even at Q4_K_M, but only ~10.5 GB is usable.

That figure is at a 4k context and moves about ±15% as context length changes.

The gap is about 12.7 GB: Ornith 1.0 35B needs roughly 23.2 GB at Q4_K_M and Apple M4 (16GB) leaves only about 10.5 GB usable for a model. The lightest tracked hardware that runs Ornith 1.0 35B is the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 (32GB) at 32 GB. See Ornith 1.0 35B on Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 (32GB).

Q4_K_M needed: ~23.2 GB
Usable on device: ~10.5 GB
Device memory: 16 GB

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Which quant fits

Quant ladder vs ~10.5 GB usable

Q2_K

~16.9 GB

Q3_K_M

~19.3 GB

Q4_K_M

~23.2 GB

Q5_K_M

~27.1 GB

Q6_K

~30.9 GB

Q8_0

~39.2 GB

FP16

~71.2 GB

The line marks Apple M4 (16GB)'s ~10.5 GB budget; rungs past it are too large.

Model Ornith

Parameters: 35B (MoE, 3B active)
Q4_K_M size: 21 GB
Q8_0 size: 37 GB
Context: 256k
Ollama tag: ornith:35b

Full Ornith 1.0 35B requirements →

Device macOS

Memory: 16 GB unified
Usable for weights: ~10.5 GB
Power draw: ~65 W
Best runtime: Ollama (MLX backend, preview) / MLX direct

Best models for Apple M4 (16GB) →

What you can run instead

Run Ornith 1.0 35B on other hardware

Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 (32GB)32GB RAM Laptop (CPU/iGPU only)Apple M4 Pro (48GB)Apple M5 Pro (48GB)Apple M4 Max (64GB)Apple M4 Max (128GB)

FAQ

Can Apple M4 (16GB) run Ornith 1.0 35B?

No. Ornith 1.0 35B needs ~23.2 GB even at Q4_K_M, but Apple M4 (16GB) only has ~10.5 GB usable.

How much memory does Ornith 1.0 35B need?

Apple M4 (16GB) does not have enough memory. At Q4_K_M the weights are ~21 GB; with KV cache and runtime overhead, budget ~23.2 GB at a 4k context. It is a Mixture-of-Experts model (35B total / 3B active), so all experts must stay in memory; memory tracks total params, not active params.

What is the best tool to run Ornith 1.0 35B on macOS?

LM Studio for a simple setup; mlx-lm for the most speed. vLLM is NOT a Mac tool, it is a CUDA/Linux serving engine. Unified memory is not a fixed VRAM slice; ~70% is usable for weights.

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Markdown

[![Ornith 1.0 35B on Apple M4 (16GB)](https://localmodel.run/badge/ornith-1.0-35b/apple-m4-16gb.svg)](https://localmodel.run/can-i-run/ornith-1.0-35b/apple-m4-16gb)

Sources

Weights are measured from GGUF files; KV cache and overhead are computed, so totals can vary ~15% with context and runtime. Any tok/s is a bandwidth estimate. See methodology.