How fast is DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp on an Mac?

Around 0 tokens per second. Token generation on Apple Silicon is limited by memory bandwidth, and this machine has 68 GB/s.

How much memory does DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp need?

173.8 GiB for the weights at Q4_K_M, plus 0.7 GiB for an 8K-token KV cache and about 9.5 GiB of runtime overhead — 183.9 GiB in total.

Home › DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp › M1 16GB

Can an M1 16GB Mac run DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp?

M1 · 16 GB unified memory · 68 GB/s · MacBook Air (M1), Mac mini (M1)

No — not at Q4_K_M.

DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp needs about 183.9 GiB but an M1 16GB Mac has only ~13.0 GiB available for a model — you are 170.9 GiB short. macOS will swap to SSD and generation will crawl.

Weights

173.8 GiB

304.65B params @ Q4_K_M

KV cache

0.7 GiB

8K context, FP16

Overhead

9.5 GiB

runtime + activations

Total needed

183.9 GiB

of ~13.0 GiB usable

Est. speed

0 tok/s

68 GB/s bandwidth

Max context

n/a

at Q4_K_M

Where the memory goes

Three things occupy memory when a model is loaded: the weights themselves, the KV cache that holds the conversation, and the runtime's own working buffers. Only the first is fixed — the KV cache grows with every token in your context.

Quantisation	Weights	Total	Fits?
FP16	567.5 GiB	597.3 GiB	No
Q8_0	301.5 GiB	318.0 GiB	No
Q6_K	234.1 GiB	247.3 GiB	No
Q5_K_M	202.2 GiB	213.7 GiB	No
Q4_K_M	173.8 GiB	183.9 GiB	No
Q3_K_M	138.3 GiB	146.7 GiB	No
Q2_K	106.4 GiB	113.2 GiB	No

The default. Best quality-per-gigabyte for most people.

How long a context fits

The KV cache is often what breaks a setup that looked fine at load time. Quantising it to 8-bit roughly halves its footprint with little measurable quality cost.

Context	KV cache	Total	FP16 KV	Q8 KV
2K	0.2 GiB	183.2 GiB	No	No
4K	0.3 GiB	183.5 GiB	No	No
8K	0.7 GiB	183.9 GiB	No	No
16K	1.3 GiB	184.9 GiB	No	No
32K	2.7 GiB	186.9 GiB	No	No
128K	10.8 GiB	198.5 GiB	No	No

What to run instead on an M1 16GB Mac

These are the largest models that fit comfortably on this machine at Q4_K_M with an 8K context.

Model	Size	Total	Tok/s
Qwen3 14B	14.8B	10.9 GiB	6	Yes, comfortably
Gemma 2 9B	9.24B	9.0 GiB	10	Yes, comfortably
Qwen3 8B	8.2B	6.8 GiB	11	Yes, comfortably
Llama 3.1 8B	8.03B	6.6 GiB	11	Yes, comfortably
DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-7B	7.62B	5.8 GiB	12	Yes, comfortably
Qwen2.5 7B	7.62B	5.8 GiB	12	Yes, comfortably

Macs that run DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp comfortably

The smallest configuration that handles it is the M3 Ultra 256GB (Mac Studio (M3 Ultra)).

Mac	Memory	Bandwidth	Tok/s
M3 Ultra 256GB	256 GB	819 GB/s	4
M3 Ultra 512GB	512 GB	819 GB/s	4

Common questions

Can an M1 16GB Mac run DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp?: No. At Q4_K_M it needs about 183.9 GiB, and an M1 16GB Mac has roughly 13.0 GiB available for a model after macOS takes its share.
How fast is DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp on an Mac?: Around 0 tokens per second. Token generation on Apple Silicon is limited by memory bandwidth, and this machine has 68 GB/s.
How much memory does DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp need?: 173.8 GiB for the weights at Q4_K_M, plus 0.7 GiB for an 8K-token KV cache and about 9.5 GiB of runtime overhead — 183.9 GiB in total.