Macs

Which AI models run on the M6 (16 GB, 10-core GPU)?

The M6 (16 GB, 10-core GPU) has 16 GB of memory, about 10.7 GB of it usable for a model. 43 of the 110 models in our catalog run on it at 4-bit or better.

Data as of 2 November 2026 · Vendor specs

Compare with other machines
16 GBmemory ~10.7 GB usable for a model
—bandwidth: not published
43models run at 4-bit or better
Our pick for this machine Qwen3.5 9B Instruct Q4_K_M · 8.2 of 10.7 GB · ~28 tok/s ModelFit est. The largest model on our shortlist of current models that runs at 4-bit or better and 10 tok/s or more.

Models that run on it

ModelBest buildMemorySpeed
Nemotron Nano 9B v29BQ4_K_M6.6 GBno estimate
Qwen3.5 9B Instruct9BQ4_K_M8.2 GB~28 tok/s ModelFit est.
Qwen2.5 7B Instruct7BQ4_K_M6.6 GB~30 tok/s ModelFit est.
Gemma 3 4B Instruct4BQ8_05.0 GB~32 tok/s ModelFit est.
Ministral 3 14B13.5BQ4_K_M10.3 GB~15 tok/s ModelFit est.
Mellum2.1 12B-A2.5B Thinking12.1B MoEQ4_K_M9.3 GBno estimate
Gemma 4 12B12BQ4_K_M9.2 GB~18 tok/s ModelFit est.
GLM-4-9B-Chat9.4BQ4_K_M7.5 GB~23 tok/s ModelFit est.
Gemma 2 9B Instruct9BQ4_K_M8.2 GB~20 tok/s ModelFit est.
Ornith 1.0 9B9BQ4_K_M6.7 GB~28 tok/s ModelFit est.
MiMo-V2.6-Distill-Qwen-9B9BQ4_K_M6.9 GB~27 tok/s ModelFit est.
Jebadiah 9B9BQ5_K_M7.8 GB~24 tok/s ModelFit est.
Granite 4.2 8B8.8BQ4_K_M6.1 GB~24 tok/s ModelFit est.
Granite Switch 4.1 8B8.8BQ4_K_M7.6 GB~20 tok/s ModelFit est.
MiniCPM-V 4.5 8B8.7BQ4_K_M6.8 GB~27 tok/s ModelFit est.
Ministral 3 8B8.4BQ4_K_M7.1 GB~23 tok/s ModelFit est.
LFM2.5 8B-A1B8.3B MoEQ4_K_M6.6 GB~79 tok/s ModelFit est.
Llama 3.1 8B Instruct8BQ8_09.2 GB~17 tok/s ModelFit est.
Qwen3 8B8BQ8_09.3 GB~16 tok/s ModelFit est.
Granite 4.1 8B Instruct8BQ4_K_M6.6 GB~23 tok/s ModelFit est.
Mistral 7B Instruct7BQ8_08.4 GB~17 tok/s ModelFit est.
Qwen2.5 Coder 7B7BQ4_K_M6.6 GB~30 tok/s ModelFit est.
DeepSeek-R1 Distill Qwen 7B7BQ8_08.7 GB~18 tok/s ModelFit est.
Gemma 4 E4B4.5BQ8_08.7 GB~28 tok/s ModelFit est.
Qwen3.5 4B Instruct4BQ8_05.4 GB~30 tok/s ModelFit est.
NVIDIA Nemotron 3.5 Bolt E4B4BQ4_K_M9.1 GB~35 tok/s ModelFit est.
Phi-3 Mini 3.8B3.8BQ4_K_M4.3 GBno estimate
Phi-4 Mini 3.8B3.8BQ8_04.9 GB~30 tok/s ModelFit est.
Granite 4.2 3B3.7BQ4_K_M3.2 GB~55 tok/s ModelFit est.
Ministral 3 3B3.4BQ4_K_M4.1 GB~40 tok/s ModelFit est.
Qwen2.5 3B Instruct3BQ4_K_M3.6 GB~64 tok/s ModelFit est.
Llama 3.2 3B Instruct3BQ4_K_M3.6 GB~54 tok/s ModelFit est.
Granite 4.1 3B Instruct3BQ4_K_M3.0 GB~55 tok/s ModelFit est.
Gemma 4 E2B2.3BQ8_05.7 GB~64 tok/s ModelFit est.
Gemma 2 2B Instruct2BQ4_K_M2.8 GB~62 tok/s ModelFit est.
Qwen3.5 2B Instruct2BQ4_K_M2.8 GB~65 tok/s ModelFit est.
LFM3 1.7B1.73BQ4_K_M2.1 GB~109 tok/s ModelFit est.
Qwen2.5 1.5B Instruct1.5BQ4_K_M2.5 GB~113 tok/s ModelFit est.
Llama 3.2 1B Instruct1BQ4_K_M2.0 GB~129 tok/s ModelFit est.
Gemma 3 1B Instruct1BQ8_02.0 GB~114 tok/s ModelFit est.
Qwen3.5 0.8B Instruct0.8BQ4_K_M1.8 GB~139 tok/s ModelFit est.
Qwen2.5 0.5B Instruct0.5BQ4_K_M1.8 GB~232 tok/s ModelFit est.
SmolLM2 360M0.36BQ4_K_M1.5 GB~135 tok/s ModelFit est.

Speeds come from ModelFit's estimates (CC BY 4.0) where it covers the model, otherwise from our bandwidth formula. Method

Too big for this machine

Mistral Nemo 12B (10.7 GB), Gemma 3 12B Instruct (10.7 GB), Qwen2.5 14B Instruct (12.3 GB), Phi-3 Medium 14B (12.3 GB), Qwen2.5 Coder 14B (12.3 GB), Qwen3 14B (12.3 GB), DeepSeek-R1 Distill Qwen 14B (12.3 GB), Phi-4 14B (12.8 GB), gpt-oss-20b (15.1 GB), LFM2 24B-A2B Instruct (15.3 GB), Mistral Small 3.1 (16.4 GB), Devstral Small 2 24B (16.6 GB) and more.

Questions

What is the best AI model for the M6 (16 GB, 10-core GPU)?

Qwen3.5 9B Instruct at Q4_K_M: the largest model on our shortlist of current models that runs at 4-bit or better at a usable speed (about 28 tok/s, ModelFit est.).

How much memory can a model use on the M6 (16 GB, 10-core GPU)?

About 10.7 GB of the 16 GB.