Best image models for a 96GB Mac
A leaderboard of the best image models for a Mac with 96GB of memory. The best one that runs on it right now is Qwen-Image-2.1, followed by Ideogram 4.0 and ERNIE-Image-Turbo. Models are ranked by one score that combines 73 published benchmarks. Models that run on it show the download that fits and the command to run it.
114 models · scores combine 73 benchmarks · updated how it works · find a leaderboard · benchmark your machine
Models for 96GB RAM · Apple Silicon → ~72GB fast · reset
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Score vs API price
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● open weights ◆ API only ─┘ best score for the price · x: USD per image (log)
| # | model | score↓ | where↓ | speed↓ | sources |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst | 92±2 | api $0.013/image |     | |
| 2 | GPT Image 2.5 Flare | 88±2 | api $0.013/image | | |
| 3 | GPT Image 2 | 85±1 | api $0.053/image | +5 | |
| 5 |  Nano Banana 2.1 | 81±2* | api $0.034/image | | |
| 6 |  Grok Imagine Image 2.0 | 79±2 | api $0.040/image | | |
| 7 |  Reve 2.1 | 78±2 | api $0.25/image | | |
| 8 |  Muse Image | 76±2 | api $0.010/image | | |
| 9 | Nano Banana 2 (Gemini 3.1 Flash Image) | 76±1 | api $0.067/image | +7 | |
| 10 | Nano Banana Pro (Gemini 3 Pro Image) | 76±1 | api $0.13/image | +10 | |
| 11 |  Qwen-Image-3.0-Pro | 75±2 | api $0.040/image | | |
| 12 |  Seedream 5.0 Pro | 75±2 | api $0.050/image | | |
| 13 | Reve 2.0 | 74±2* | api $0.25/image | | |
| 14 | ChatGPT Image Latest (chatgpt-image-latest) | 74±4* | api $0.034/image | | |
| 16 | Nano Banana 2 Lite (Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite Image) | 73±2 | api $0.034/image | | |
| 17 | GPT Image 1.5 | 71±1 | api $0.034/image | +5 | |
| 18 | Qwen-Image-2.1 · int8 convrot + Qwen3-VL 8B q4_k_m (sd.cpp) | 69±2 | local | | |
| 20 | Qwen-Image-2.0-Pro (2026-06-22) | 67±2* | api $0.075/image | | |
| 21 |  Uni-1.1 | 67±2* | api $0.040/image | | |
| 23 |  Ideogram 4.0 · fp8 + Qwen3-VL 8B q4_k_m (sd.cpp) | 66±2* | local | | |
| 24 | Qwen-Image 2.0 Pro | 66±3 | api $0.075/image | | |
| 26 | Grok Imagine Image | 66±2 | api $0.020/image | | |
| 27 | Uni-1.1 Max | 65±2 | api $0.10/image | | |
| 28 | Grok Imagine Image Pro | 65±2 | api $0.050/image | | |
| 29 | Seedream 5.0 Lite | 65±2 | api $0.035/image | +2 | |
| 30 |  Seedream 4.5 | 64±1 | api $0.040/image | +1 | |
| 31 |  Recraft V4.1 Utility Pro | 64±2* | api $0.21/image | | |
| 32 |  FLUX.2 [max] | 64±1 | api $0.070/image | | |
| 33 |  Wan 2.7 Image Pro | 63±2 | api $0.075/image | | |
| 36 | FLUX.2 [pro] | 63±2 | api $0.030/image | | |
| 37 | FLUX.2 [flex] | 62±2 | api $0.050/image | | |
| 38 |  HunyuanImage 3.0-Instruct | 62±3* | api $0.090/image | | |
| 39 | Nano Banana (Gemini 2.5 Flash Image) | 62±1 | api $0.039/image |  +10 | |
| 40 | Wan 2.7 Image | 62±2 | api $0.030/image | | |
| 41 | Imagen 4 Ultra | 61±2 | api $0.060/image | | |
| 42 | GPT Image 1 | 61±1 | api $0.042/image | +9 | |
| 43 | Wan 2.6 Text-to-Image | 61±3* | api $0.030/image | | |
| 45 | Seedream 4.0 | 61±1 | api $0.040/image | +5 | |
| 46 | Recraft V4.1 Pro | 61±3* | api $0.21/image | | |
| 47 |  ERNIE-Image-Turbo · bf16 + Ministral 3B (sd.cpp) | 61±3† | local | | |
| 49 | ERNIE-Image · gguf-ud-q4_k_m + Ministral 3B (sd.cpp, all files in memory) | 60±2 | local | | |
| 50 |  Kling Image O1 | 60±4* | api $0.028/image | | |
| 51 |  Krea 2 Medium | 60±3* | api $0.030/image | | |
| 52 | Imagen 4 | 59±2 | api $0.040/image | | |
| 53 | Wan 2.5 Text-to-Image Preview | 59±3* | api $0.030/image | | |
| 54 | Recraft V4 | 59±3* | api $0.040/image | | |
| 56 | Krea 2 Turbo · gguf-q8_0 + Qwen3-VL 4B q4_k_m (sd.cpp) | 59±3* | local | | |
| 57 | GPT Image 1 Mini | 59±2 | api $0.011/image | | |
| 58 | Krea 2 Large | 59±3* | api $0.060/image | | |
| 59 | Qwen-Image-Edit-2509 · gguf-q4_k_s + Qwen2.5-VL q8_0 (sd.cpp) | 59±3 | local | | |
| 60 |  HiDream-O1-Image | 58±2 | api $0.010/image | | |
| 61 | FLUX.2 [dev] · gguf-q4_k_s + Mistral Small 3.2 q4_k_m (sd.cpp) | 58±1 | local | +8 | |
| 63 |  Z-Image (Base) · bf16 + Qwen3 4B bf16 (sd.cpp) | 58±2 | local | | |
| 64 | Wan 2.6 Image | 58±4* | api $0.030/image | | |
| 65 | HunyuanImage 2.1 | 58±2* | api $0.10/image | | |
| 66 | Qwen-Image-Edit-2511 · gguf-q4_k_m + Qwen2.5-VL bf16 (sd.cpp) | 58±2 | local | +2 | |
| 67 | Recraft V4.1 Flash | 57±3* | api $0.0070/image | | |
| 68 | HunyuanImage 3.0 | 57±2 | api $0.080/image | +3 | |
| 72 |  LongCat-Image-Edit | 56±2 | api $0.15/image | | |
| 74 |  P-Image-Edit | 56±4* | api $0.010/image | | |
| 76 | Qwen-Image-2512 · gguf-q4_k_m (Unsloth) + Qwen2.5-VL Q4_K_XL | 56±1 | local | +1 | |
| 78 | Z-Image-Turbo · gguf-q3_k (+ Qwen3-4B Q4_K_M text encoder) | 55±1 | local | +1 | |
| 79 |  LLaDA-Image · f16 + LLaDA2 text encoder q8_0 (sd.cpp) | 55±3† | local | | |
| 80 | Qwen-Image-Edit · gguf-q8_0 + Qwen2.5-VL bf16 (sd.cpp) | 55±2 | local | +4 | |
| 82 | FLUX.2 [klein] 9B · gguf-q4_0 + Qwen3 8B q4_k_m (sd.cpp) | 55±2 | local | | |
| 83 | FLUX.1 Kontext [max] | 55±2 | api $0.080/image | | |
| 85 | Qwen-Image · gguf-q8_0 + Qwen2.5-VL Q8_0 (sd.cpp) | 54±1 | local | +8 | |
| 87 | LLaDA-Image-Turbo · f16 + LLaDA2 text encoder q8_0 (sd.cpp) | 54±3† | local | | |
| 88 | LongCat-Image · gguf-q4_k_m + Qwen2.5-VL q8_0 (sd.cpp) | 53±4 | local | | |
| 90 | Kling Image 2.1 | 53±7* | api $0.014/image | | |
| 92 | Wan 2.5 Image-to-Image Preview | 53±4* | api $0.030/image | | |
| 93 |  MiniMax image-01 | 53±5* | api $0.0035/image | | |
| 94 | Ideogram 3.0 | 52±2 | api $0.060/image | | |
| 97 | FLUX.2 [klein] 4B · bf16 + Qwen3 4B bf16 (sd.cpp) | 52±2 | local | | |
| 98 | P-Image | 51±2* | api $0.0050/image | | |
| 99 | Photon | 51±2 | api $0.019/image | | |
| 100 | Recraft V3 | 50±2 | api $0.040/image | | |
| 101 | FLUX.1 Kontext [pro] | 50±2 | api $0.040/image | | |
| 102 |  GLM-Image | 50±2 | api $0.015/image | | |
| 104 |  Runway Gen-4 Image | 50±3* | api $0.050/image | | |
| 105 |  Lucid Origin | 49±3* | api $0.017/image | | |
| 113 |  Ovis-Image-7B · gguf-q4_0 + Ovis 2.5 (sd.cpp) | 48±7* | local | | |
| 114 | FLUX.1 Krea [dev] | 47±3 | api $0.025/image | | |
| 116 | HiDream-I1-Full | 47±2 | api $0.050/image | | |
| 118 | Ideogram 2.0 | 46±2 | api $0.080/image | | |
| 120 | FLUX1.1 [pro] | 46±2 | api $0.040/image | | |
| 126 | FLUX.1 Kontext [dev] · gguf-q8_0 (sd.cpp) | 44±1 | local | +7 | |
| 127 | FLUX.1 [dev] · bf16 | 44±1 | local | +5 | |
| 131 |  Lumina-Image 2.0 | 43±4* | api $0.075/image | | |
| 133 | BAGEL | 42±1 | api $0.10/image | +14 | |
| 135 | FLUX.1 [schnell] · bf16 | 42±2 | local | | |
| 136 |  OmniGen2 | 42±2 | api $0.15/image | +6 | |
| 137 |  Stable Diffusion 3.5 Large · bf16 + T5 fp16 (sd.cpp) | 42±1 | local | +4 | |
| 139 |  Playground v2 (1024px aesthetic) · fp16 (sd.cpp) | 41±4* | local | | |
| 141 | Stable Diffusion 3.5 Medium | 41±3 | api $0.035/image | | |
| 148 | Stable Diffusion XL 0.9 (base) · q8_0 (sd.cpp --type) | 40±6* | local | | |
| 149 | Stable Diffusion 3 Medium · fp16 incl. CLIPs + T5 (sd.cpp) | 40±2 | local | | |
| 153 |  Janus-Pro-7B | 38±2 | api $0.0020/image | | |
| 156 | SDXL-Lightning (4-step UNet) · fp16 (sd.cpp) | 37±3* | local | | |
| 158 | Janus-Pro-1B | 36±4 | api $0.0005/image | | |
| 161 |  SSD-1B · fp16 (sd.cpp) | 36±4* | local | | |
| 167 | Stable Diffusion XL 1.0 · fp16 (sd.cpp) | 34±1 | local | +8 | |
| 170 | SDXL-Turbo · fp16 (sd.cpp) | 34±2 | local | | |
| 178 |  Dreamlike Photoreal 2.0 · q8_0 (sd.cpp --type) | 30±3 | local | | |
| 183 |  DALL·E Mega (minDALL-E) · fp32 | 29±4 | local | | |
| 185 |  Openjourney · q8_0 (sd.cpp --type) | 28±2 | local | | |
| 186 |  Stable Diffusion v1.4 · fp32 | 27±2 | local | | |
| 187 | Stable Diffusion v1.3 · fp32 | 27±4* | local | | |
| 188 | Stable Diffusion v1.1 · fp32 | 26±3 | local | | |
| 189 | Stable Diffusion v1.2 · fp32 | 26±3* | local | | |
| 191 | Stable Diffusion v1.5 · fp32 | 26±2 | local | +1 | |
| 193 |  LCM Dreamshaper v7 · openvino-fp16 (OpenVINO GenAI) | 23±4* | local | | |
| — |  Mage-Flow · bf16 + Qwen3-VL 4B q4_k_m (sd.cpp) | not yet calibrated | local | | |
| — | Mage-Flow-Base · bf16 + Qwen3-VL 4B q4_k_m (sd.cpp) | not yet calibrated | local | | |
| — | Mage-Flow-Turbo · bf16 + Qwen3-VL 4B q4_k_m (sd.cpp) | not yet calibrated | local | |
+ 88 more don't fit your machine or budget · show them
202 of 202 catalogue models listed here · sources and licences
* new or thinly tested: ranked on too few benchmark results · † only the maker’s own numbers so far · ~RAM is estimated; full context may need more memory