Can I run this LLM?
Can a MacBook Air / Mac mini M2 (8GB) run Phi-4 14B?
Phi · MIT · estimated for a 8.0 GB machine at 4K context.
No — too big for this machine.
Phi-4 14B needs more memory than the 8.0 GB on a MacBook Air / Mac mini M2 (8GB), even at its smallest quantization.
Arena Text Overall · style-controlled
1,256Local pack untestedphi-4 · published configuration reference · local quantizations not tested
Arena Text Overall (style-controlled), exact published entry phi-4, 2026-10-08: reference rating 1,256.3. Published confidence bounds 1,251.7–1,260.9. 24,126 votes. Published phi-4 configuration reference. Reasoning mode is not disclosed by the Arena dataset. Tested precision, runtime and sampling settings are not disclosed in this dataset. Your selected local quantization has not been measured by this Arena entry. No quantization quality adjustment is applied.
Snapshot published 2026-10-08 · snapshot imported 2026-10-11 UTC · validated last-good data · manual refresh
Arena leaderboard dataset · Arena / lmarena-ai, Arena Leaderboard Dataset (CC BY 4.0). Selected Text Overall style-controlled rows; field names adapted, ratings unchanged. · dataset CC BY 4.0 · revision e16f90232986
Too big for your machine — run it in the cloud
Needs 1× 24–32 GB GPU (RTX 4090 / 5090 / L4) · about $0.30–0.80/hr
- RunPod — Per-second GPU pods — bring your own GGUF, spin up on demand.
- Vast.ai — Cheap GPU marketplace — rent by the hour, bring your own GGUF.
- Vultr — Cloud GPU VMs by the hour — full root access, run any stack.
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Ran Phi-4 14B on a MacBook Air / Mac mini M2 (8GB)? Add your real numbers →