MacBook Air M1 8GB
Apple · M1 · 8GB Unified Memory · Can run 24 models
Buy Apple
| Manufacturer | Apple |
| Unified Mem | 8 GB |
| Chip | M1 |
| CPU Cores | 8 |
| GPU Cores | 7 |
| Neural Engine | 16 |
| Bandwidth | 68 GB/s |
| MSRP | $999 |
| Released | Nov 17, 2020 |
AI Notes
The MacBook Air M1 8GB was Apple's first ARM-based laptop and remains a capable entry point for local AI. With just 8GB of unified memory, it is limited to 7B-parameter models with Q4 quantization. Its fanless design runs silent but may throttle under sustained inference loads.
Compatible Models
| Model | Parameters | Best Quant | VRAM Used | Fit | Est. Speed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gemma 3 1B | 1B | Q8_0 | 2 GB | Runs | ~34 tok/s |
| Llama 3.2 1B | 1B | Q8_0 | 3 GB | Runs | ~23 tok/s |
| DeepSeek R1 1.5B | 1.5B | Q8_0 | 3 GB | Runs | ~23 tok/s |
| Gemma 2 2B | 2B | Q8_0 | 4 GB | Runs | ~17 tok/s |
| Llama 3.2 3B | 3B | Q8_0 | 5 GB | Runs | ~14 tok/s |
| Phi-3 Mini 3.8B | 3.8B | Q8_0 | 5.8 GB | Runs | ~12 tok/s |
| Phi-4 Mini 3.8B | 3.8B | Q4_K_M | 4.5 GB | Runs | ~15 tok/s |
| Gemma 3 4B | 4B | Q4_K_M | 5 GB | Runs | ~14 tok/s |
| Qwen 3 4B | 4B | Q4_K_M | 4.5 GB | Runs | ~15 tok/s |
| DeepSeek R1 8B | 8B | Q4_K_M | 7.5 GB | Runs (tight) | ~9 tok/s |
| Qwen 3 8B | 8B | Q4_K_M | 7.5 GB | Runs (tight) | ~9 tok/s |
| DeepSeek R1 7B | 7B | Q8_0 | 9 GB | CPU Offload | ~8 tok/s |
| Mistral 7B | 7B | Q8_0 | 9 GB | CPU Offload | ~8 tok/s |
| Qwen 2.5 7B | 7B | Q8_0 | 9 GB | CPU Offload | ~8 tok/s |
| Qwen 2.5 Coder 7B | 7B | Q8_0 | 9 GB | CPU Offload | ~8 tok/s |
| Llama 3.1 8B | 8B | Q8_0 | 10 GB | CPU Offload | ~7 tok/s |
| Gemma 2 9B | 9B | Q8_0 | 11 GB | CPU Offload | ~6 tok/s |
| Gemma 3 12B | 12B | Q4_K_M | 10.5 GB | CPU Offload | ~6 tok/s |
| Mistral Nemo 12B | 12B | Q4_K_M | 9.5 GB | CPU Offload | ~7 tok/s |
| DeepSeek R1 14B | 14B | Q4_K_M | 9.9 GB | CPU Offload | ~7 tok/s |
| Phi-4 14B | 14B | Q4_K_M | 9.9 GB | CPU Offload | ~7 tok/s |
| Qwen 2.5 14B | 14B | Q4_K_M | 9.9 GB | CPU Offload | ~7 tok/s |
| Qwen 2.5 Coder 14B | 14B | Q4_K_M | 12 GB | CPU Offload | ~6 tok/s |
| Qwen 3 14B | 14B | Q4_K_M | 12 GB | CPU Offload | ~6 tok/s |
19
model(s) are too large for this hardware.