Can the Mac 16 GB run Boogu-Image (Turbo)?
Download Q5_1 (8.6 GB). With the model's working memory it needs about 11.2 GB, leaving 1.5 GB spare on 12.7 GB. Quality: close; small differences in fine detail. For better quality, Q8_0 (11.6 GB) also runs, with about 1.5 GB spilling into system RAM — a little slower, still practical.
01What to download
| Part | File | Folder | Size | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Model | boogu-turbo-dit-Q5_1.gguf Q5_1 · realrebelai/Boogu-Image-Turbo_GGUFs | models/unet | 8.6 GB | Download → |
| Text encoder | qwen3vl_8b_fp8_scaled.safetensors Qwen3-VL 8B FP8 · Comfy-Org/Boogu-Image | models/text_encoders | 10.6 GB | Download → |
| VAE | flux1_vae_bf16.safetensors FLUX.1 VAE BF16 · Comfy-Org/Boogu-Image | models/vae | 0.2 GB | Download → |
| Total download · keep about the same free on disk | 19.4 GB | |||
On a Mac, FP8 text encoders do not load, so a 16-bit one is listed. Sizes read from Hugging Face (2026-09-25). “Download” links start the file directly; the file name links are the same files the official ComfyUI workflows use.
Shared memory: about 25.4 GB of your 16 GB. On this machine the model, the text encoder, the VAE and the operating system all use the same memory. That is about 9.4 GB more than there is. It still runs: while the model works, the system compresses or swaps the idle text encoder, so loading and changing the prompt get slower. A smaller file or text encoder avoids that. calculated
02Every Boogu-Image file on 12.7 GB
| File | Size | Needed | On this card | Quality | Download |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 16-bit SAFETENSORS · Comfy-Org | 20.6 GB | 23.2 GB | 10.5 GB too big | the original weights | Hugging Face → |
| Q8_0 GGUF · realrebelai | 11.6 GB | 14.2 GB | spills 1.5 GB | practically identical to the original | Hugging Face → |
| Q5_1 ← GGUF · realrebelai | 8.6 GB | 11.2 GB | fits · 1.5 GB spare | close; small differences in fine detail | Hugging Face → |
| Q4_1 GGUF · realrebelai | 7.4 GB | 10.0 GB | fits · 2.7 GB spare | good; some loss in fine detail and text | Hugging Face → |
Sizes from the Hugging Face file listing, read 2026-09-25. “Needed” = file + 1.8 GB working memory for this model + 0.8 GB kept free for the system. FP8 and INT8 files are left out on a Mac: Apple GPUs cannot compute FP8, so ComfyUI either fails to load them or converts them back to 16-bit, which saves no memory. Use a 16-bit or GGUF file.
03The text encoder
Qwen3-VL 8B: 10.6 GB as FP8, 6.3 GB as NVFP4. ComfyUI encodes the prompt first and can push the encoder out of VRAM before sampling, so it does not have to fit together with the model. On 12.7 GB the FP8 encoder fits on its own, so prompt encoding stays fast.
04About this GPU
A Mac with 16 GB shares that memory between the CPU and the GPU. On current macOS the GPU may use about 12.7 GB of it by default (older macOS versions: about 11.5 GB); that is the figure used here. ComfyUI can go past it, but macOS then starts compressing and swapping memory and everything slows down. ComfyUI runs on Apple GPUs through PyTorch's MPS backend. 16-bit and GGUF files work; FP8 and INT8 files do not save memory on a Mac, so they are skipped. Speed is the catch: even the fastest Macs are several times slower per image than a desktop RTX card. Chips sold with 16 GB: M1, M1 Pro, M2, M2 Pro, M3, M4, M5, M6 (memory bandwidth 68.25–200 GB/s — the higher, the faster). Everything about Macs and local AI →
Mac 16 GB: 16 GB unified · ~12.7 GB for the GPU · 68.25–200 GB/s · Apple Silicon. Everything that runs on the Mac 16 GB →
05What more VRAM would change
With 16 GB you could run Boogu-Image at 8-bit or better (Q8_0, 11.6 GB) with no offloading: for example on the RTX 5080 16 GB, RTX 5070 Ti 16 GB, RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB.
06Measured and reported results
Nobody has sent measured numbers for this pair yet. If you run Boogu-Image on a Mac 16 GB, send your time per image and peak VRAM and it will appear here, credited.
07Questions
How much VRAM does Boogu-Image need?
Around 10.0 GB with the smallest file (Q4_1) and 12.9 GB with an 8-bit file (FP8), counting working memory and a small system reserve. The full 16-bit file needs about 23.2 GB.
Which Boogu-Image file should I download for the Mac 16 GB?
Q5_1 (8.6 GB) from realrebelai/Boogu-Image-Turbo_GGUFs. Load it with Unet Loader (GGUF) from the ComfyUI-GGUF node pack.
Is FP8 faster than GGUF on the Mac 16 GB?
No. This GPU has no FP8 compute, so ComfyUI converts FP8 weights back before the maths. FP8 only saves memory here; Q8_0 GGUF is the closer-to-original 8-bit pick.
How much do I need to download for Boogu-Image on the Mac 16 GB?
About 19.4 GB for the model file, text encoder and VAE listed on this page, and the same again free on disk. With a 12.7 GB card, 32 GB of system RAM or more is recommended.