Balanced · Officially released product · Updated 2026-09-06
When using 27B~35B and want a faster response than the basic M4.
Mac Mini M4 Pro 48GB Local LLM 27B·35B Performance
It is a good configuration that balances price and speed while loading 27B~35B models without difficulty.
Core specifications
- available memory
- 41GB
- Memory bandwidth
- 273GB/s
- local LLM sustained load
- about 92W
- Korean price range (KRW)
- 263–344 × KRW 10,000
a person who fits well
- 27B~35B Q4
- Working and coding in parallel
- Finished product that is easy to set up
Check before purchasing
Considering the 70B class model and high-precision quantization, memory is insufficient.
What tasks is it suitable for?
| task | determination | reason |
|---|---|---|
| coding assistant | comfortable | It has a good balance between 27B-class responsiveness and finished product convenience. |
| Documents / RAG | fit | 41GB of available memory provides context headroom. |
| Create image | conditional | You'll need to check out the supporting tools and it's more limited than the CUDA workflow. |
Configuration Selection Criteria
The first bottleneck encountered
The balance is good up to 35B Q4, but when you go to 70B, the memory capacity becomes a boundary.
Recommended purchase setup
M4 Pro · Integrated memory 48GB · SSD 1TB recommended
Criteria for spending more money
It is worth considering if you frequently use 27B and want to avoid assembling a PC. If you only use 12B, M4 24GB is enough.
4K context · Q4 model-specific expected performance
| Model | required memory | Decode | First token | Prefill |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gemma 4 12B MLX 4-bit | 8GB | 27.8 ~ 30.9 tok/s | 6.3 ~ 14.2 s | 289 ~ 656 tok/s |
| Qwen3.8 27B MLX 4-bit | 17.56GB | 12.3 ~ 13.7 tok/s | 7.8 ~ 14.3 s | 289 ~ 530 tok/s |
| Qwen3.6 35B-A3B (MoE) MLX 4-bit | 21.28GB | 19.6 ~ 46.1 tok/s | 2.7 ~ 6.3 s | 658 ~ 1,547 tok/s |
Single-user expected range and may vary depending on runtime, cooling, and quantization files.
Frequently Asked Questions
What LLM can be run on the Mac mini M4 Pro 48GB?
Compare Gemma 4 12B, Qwen3.8 27B, Qwen3.6 35B-A3B (MoE), and other models with 4K input and the recommended format for each device. Memory requirements vary with the model and context length.
What is the local LLM computing power of the Mac mini M4 Pro 48GB?
Expected to consume approximately 92W under sustained load, with an actual range estimated between 62–122W.
Are the displayed token speeds ground truth?
This is an estimated range calibrated to the calculator against official hardware specifications and verified benchmark ranges. Runtime, cooling, quantization may vary depending on file and context length.