Last updated: 2026-05-25

ZINC hardware requirements#

ZINC runs on consumer GPUs (Linux, Vulkan) and Apple Silicon (macOS, Metal). This page covers what hardware and OS setup you need for each platform.

Supported platforms#

Platform GPU Backend Status
Linux AMD RDNA4 discrete (Navi 48 / Navi 44) Vulkan 1.3 Primary tuning target
Linux AMD RDNA4 APU (Strix Halo / gfx1151) Vulkan 1.3 Supported with APU-specific bandwidth tuning
Linux AMD RDNA3 Vulkan 1.3 Supported, less tuned
Linux Intel Arc Xe2 / Battlemage Vulkan 1.3+ Experimental bring-up
macOS Apple Silicon M1 through M5 Metal Supported, native MSL shaders

AMD GPUs (Linux)#

ZINC targets AMD consumer and workstation GPUs that the ROCm stack does not support.

Family Examples Notes
RDNA4 discrete (Navi 48 / gfx1201) RX 9070, RX 9070 XT, RX 9070 GRE, Radeon AI PRO R9700 Primary tuning target, hand-tuned shaders
RDNA4 discrete (Navi 44 / gfx1200) RX 9060, RX 9060 XT Same RDNA4 ISA as Navi 48, smaller die, narrower bus
RDNA4 APU (gfx1151) Strix Halo: Radeon 8060S, Radeon 8050S Unified-memory iGPU; ZINC selects an APU bandwidth profile (~256 GB/s) distinct from the discrete 576–640 GB/s default
RDNA3 RX 7900 XTX, RX 7900 XT, RX 7800 XT, RX 7700 XT, RX 7600 Supported, less tuned than RDNA4

Any AMD GPU with Vulkan 1.3 and a working RADV or AMDVLK driver should work.

AMD requirements#

  • OS: Linux
  • API: Vulkan 1.3
  • Driver: RADV (Mesa) or AMDVLK
  • Shader compiler: glslc (shaderc 2023.8, included in build)
  • Recommended: export RADV_PERFTEST=coop_matrix on RDNA4

Verify your Vulkan stack:

vulkaninfo --summary

If that command does not show your AMD GPU, ZINC will not work.

AMD VRAM guide#

VRAM What fits
16 GB 2B to 8B class models comfortably
32 GB 27B dense models and 35B MoE models like Qwen3.6-35B-A3B Q4_K_XL

Exact fit depends on architecture, quantization, and context length. --check -m <model> prints a practical fit estimate.

Intel Arc GPUs (Linux)#

Intel Arc support is an experimental Vulkan bring-up path. The current target is the Arc B-series / Battlemage line:

Family Examples Notes
Arc B-series desktop Arc B580, Arc B570 Best fit for 7B/8B models; B580 is the stronger consumer target
Arc Pro B-series Arc Pro B70, B65, B60, B50 Larger VRAM options for local AI; B70/B65 are the 32 GB targets

Intel requirements#

  • OS: Linux
  • API: Vulkan 1.3 or newer, depending on card and driver
  • Driver: Intel ANV / Mesa Vulkan driver
  • Platform: UEFI with Resizable BAR enabled for benchmark-quality results

Verify the Vulkan stack:

vulkaninfo --summary

If that command does not show your Intel Arc GPU, ZINC will not use it.

Intel VRAM guide#

VRAM B-series cards What fits
10-12 GB B570, B580 7B/8B class models
16 GB B50 8B with more context; some 12B experiments
24 GB B60 20B class and tight larger-model experiments
32 GB B65, B70 27B dense and 35B MoE targets

See Intel GPU Reference for the full B-series card table, device IDs, memory bandwidth, Xe2 opcode notes, and ZINC tuning guidance.

Other Vulkan GPUs#

Family Status
NVIDIA via Vulkan Vulkan works, not primary target

Apple Silicon (macOS)#

ZINC has a native Metal backend with 31 MSL compute shaders, zero-copy model loading via newBufferWithBytesNoCopy, and the same OpenAI-compatible API as the AMD path.

Chip family Metal GPU family Status
M1, M1 Pro, M1 Max, M1 Ultra Apple7 Supported
M2, M2 Pro, M2 Max, M2 Ultra Apple8 Supported
M3, M3 Pro, M3 Max, M3 Ultra Apple9 Supported
M4, M4 Pro, M4 Max Apple9 Supported
M5, M5 Pro, M5 Max Apple10 Supported (TensorOps investigation planned)

Apple Silicon requirements#

  • OS: macOS
  • Tools: Xcode Command Line Tools (xcode-select --install)
  • No Vulkan, no ROCm, no MLX, no Python needed

Apple Silicon memory guide#

Apple Silicon uses unified memory shared between CPU and GPU. There is no separate "VRAM" budget.

Unified memory What fits
8 GB Too tight for most models
16 GB 2B models comfortably
24 GB 2B with headroom, 35B might be tight
32+ GB 27B dense and 35B MoE models like Qwen3.6-35B-A3B Q4_K_XL
64+ GB (Pro/Max/Ultra) Large models with generous context

ZINC uses zero-copy model loading on Metal, so a 1.2 GB model file does not require an additional 1.2 GB of GPU memory. The model weights stay in place and the GPU reads from the mmap'd pages directly.

Preflight check#

Once the binary is built, verify everything works:

./zig-out/bin/zinc --check

On AMD Linux, add the cooperative matrix flag:

export RADV_PERFTEST=coop_matrix
./zig-out/bin/zinc --check

The check command verifies:

  • GPU detection (Vulkan device or Metal device)
  • Shader assets (SPIR-V on Linux, MSL sources on macOS)
  • Runtime initialization
  • Model fit (when -m <model> or --model-id <id> is passed)

Model catalog#

See which models ZINC supports on your machine:

# Models that fit this machine
./zig-out/bin/zinc model list

# Full catalog including models that do not fit
./zig-out/bin/zinc model list --all

The catalog automatically selects the right GPU profile (amd-rdna4-32gb, apple-silicon, etc.) and shows which models are installed, active, and fit the available memory.

System requirements (both platforms)#

Resource Minimum Recommended
CPU Any modern 64-bit (x86_64 or arm64) Multi-core for serving
System RAM 16 GB 32 GB+ for larger models
Storage SSD NVMe SSD for fast model loading

Quick sanity check#

Linux (AMD)#

lspci | grep -i "vga\|display\|amd\|radeon"
vulkaninfo --summary
./zig-out/bin/zinc --check

Linux (Intel Arc)#

lspci | grep -i "vga\|display\|intel\|arc"
vulkaninfo --summary
./zig-out/bin/zinc --check

macOS (Apple Silicon)#

system_profiler SPDisplaysDataType | head -20
./zig-out/bin/zinc --check

Shortest path to success#

On Linux with an AMD GPU#

export RADV_PERFTEST=coop_matrix
zig build -Doptimize=ReleaseFast
./zig-out/bin/zinc --check
./zig-out/bin/zinc model pull qwen35-9b-q4k-m
./zig-out/bin/zinc chat

Then see RDNA4 Tuning for performance work.

On Linux with an Intel Arc GPU#

zig build -Doptimize=ReleaseFast
./zig-out/bin/zinc --check
./zig-out/bin/zinc model pull qwen35-9b-q4k-m
./zig-out/bin/zinc chat

Then see Intel GPU Reference for Arc B-series hardware details and current tuning notes.

On macOS with Apple Silicon#

zig build -Doptimize=ReleaseFast
./zig-out/bin/zinc --check
./zig-out/bin/zinc model pull qwen35-9b-q4k-m
./zig-out/bin/zinc chat

Then see Apple Silicon Reference and Apple Metal Reference for platform details.