OMM, Llama 3.3 70B runs at ~7 text generation tokens per second on Macbook Pro Max 128GB, while generating GPT-4 feeling text with more in depth responses and fewer bullets. Llama 3.3 70B also doesn't fight the system prompt, it leans in.
Consider e.g. LM Studio (0.3.5 or newer) for a Metal (MLX) centered UI, include MLX in your search term when downloading models.
Also, do not scrimp on the storage. At 60GB - 100GB per model, it takes a day of experimentation to use 2.5TB of storage in your model cache. And remember to exclude that path from your TimeMachine backups.
It's all memory bandwidth related -- what's slow is loading these models into memory, basically. The last die from Apple with all the channels was the M2 Ultra, and I bet that's what tops those leader boards. M4 has not had a Max or an Ultra release yet; when it does (and it seems likely it will), those will be the ones to get.
You could definitely run an 8B model on that, and some of those are getting very capable now.
The problem is that often you can't run anything else. I've had trouble running larger models in 64GB when I've had a bunch of Firefox and VS Code tabs open at the same time.
I have a M2 Air with 24GB, and have successfully run some 12B models such as mistral-nemo. Had other stuff going as well, but it's best to give it as much of the machine as possible.
I recently upgraded to exactly this machine for exactly this reason, but I haven't taken the leap and installed anything yet. What's your favorite model to run on it?
I bought an old used desktop computer, a used 3090, and upgraded the power supply, all for around 900€. Didn't assemble it all yet. But it will be able to comfortably run 30B parameter models with 30-40 T/s. The M4 Max can do ~10 T/s, which is not great once you really want to rely on it for your productivity.
Yes, it is not "local" as I will have to use the internet when not at home. But it will also not drain the battery very quickly when using it, which I suspect would happen to a Macbook Pro running such models. Also 70B models are out of reach of my setup, but I think they are painfully slow on Mac hardware.
I'm returning my 96GB m2 max. It can run unquantized llama 3.3 70B but tokens per second is slow as molasses and still I couldn't find any use for it, just kept going back to perplexity when I actually needed to find an answer to something.
https://github.com/ggerganov/llama.cpp/discussions/4167
OMM, Llama 3.3 70B runs at ~7 text generation tokens per second on Macbook Pro Max 128GB, while generating GPT-4 feeling text with more in depth responses and fewer bullets. Llama 3.3 70B also doesn't fight the system prompt, it leans in.
Consider e.g. LM Studio (0.3.5 or newer) for a Metal (MLX) centered UI, include MLX in your search term when downloading models.
Also, do not scrimp on the storage. At 60GB - 100GB per model, it takes a day of experimentation to use 2.5TB of storage in your model cache. And remember to exclude that path from your TimeMachine backups.