Can the Mac Mini M4 run Phi-4?

Yes. Phi-4 fits the Mac Mini M4's 16 GB at Q4_K_M (about 10.3 GB needed), running at an estimated 8.1 tok/s. There's room for up to Q5_K_M if you want higher quality.

Memory

16 GB

Needs at Q4

10.3 GB

Headroom

5.7 GB

Speed (Q4_K_M)

~8.1 tok/s

Every quantization

Phi-4 (14B) on 16 GB

Quant	Weights	Needs	Fit	Est. speed
Q4_K_M	8.5 GB	10.3 GB	Fits	~8.1 tok/s
Q5_K_M	10.5 GB	12.3 GB	Fits	~6.5 tok/s
Q8_0	16 GB	17.8 GB	Too big	-
FP16	28 GB	29.8 GB	Too big	-

Estimates. Needs = weights + 1.8 GB for KV cache and runtime at modest context. Speed is single-stream decode scaled from the Mac Mini M4's 120 GB/s bandwidth (Estimated from memory bandwidth (llama.cpp decode)). Long contexts need more memory and run slower.

Run it

Copy, paste, go

ollama run phi-4:14b

llama-server -hf microsoft/phi-4-gguf -ngl 99

Ollama pulls a Q4 build by default. Pick a larger quant only if the table above says it fits. Full Phi-4 details →

Compare

Same model, other hardware - and other models on this card

Phi-4 on other hardware

RTX 5090~121 tok/s
RTX 5090 D~121 tok/s
RTX 6000D~106 tok/s
RTX 4090~74 tok/s
Radeon RX 7900 XTX~65 tok/s
RTX 5080~65 tok/s
RTX 3090~64 tok/s
RTX 3080 Ti~62 tok/s

Also runs on the Mac Mini M4

Mac Mini M4 specs →Everything the Mac Mini M4 can run →

Frequently asked

Quick answers

Can the Apple Mac Mini M4 run Phi-4?

Yes. Phi-4 fits the Mac Mini M4's 16 GB at Q4_K_M (about 10.3 GB needed), running at an estimated 8.1 tok/s. There's room for up to Q5_K_M if you want higher quality.

How much VRAM does Phi-4 need?

About 8.5 GB of weights at Q4_K_M, 16 GB at Q8_0 and 28 GB at FP16. Add roughly 1.8 GB for the KV cache and runtime at modest context lengths.

How fast is Phi-4 on the Mac Mini M4?

Roughly 8.1 tokens per second at Q4_K_M (single user, llama.cpp-style decode). This is an estimate from the Mac Mini M4's 120 GB/s memory bandwidth.