Distil-Whisper large-v3
turns speech into text, in a smaller file
How good is it?
Within a small gap of Whisper large-v3 on English, and faster.
This job is not on the July 2026 chat board, so the line above comes from the model card.
Clear English comes out very well. Heavy accents, crosstalk, and bad mics still cause mistakes. You will want to skim the result.
Will it fit?
A green light means it fits and feels fine. Amber means it fits, with a wait or a tight memory pool. Red means the file is bigger than the room we count.
Small Mac
Runs wellMac mini M4 16 GB
About as fast as the recording plays
Around $599
Source: Apple M4 tech specs (Ars Technica comparison, launch price), 14 Oct 2026
Roomy Mac
Runs wellMac mini M4 32 GB
About as fast as the recording plays
Around $1,099 · estimate
Source: Apple M4 Mac mini memory options, 14 Oct 2026
Big Mac
Runs wellMac mini M5 Pro 64 GB
Faster than the recording
Around $2,499 · estimate
Source: Apple Mac mini specs, 14 Oct 2026
Small graphics card
Runs wellRTX 4060 8 GB
Faster than the recording
Around $999 all-in · estimate
Source: NVIDIA RTX 4060 specifications, 14 Oct 2026
Mid graphics card
Runs wellRTX 5070 Ti 16 GB
Much faster than the recording
Around $2,070 all-in
Source: ByteSizedDeals and Digital Citizen, 14 Oct 2026
Big graphics card
Runs wellRTX 4090 24 GB
Much faster than the recording
Around $2,900 all-in · estimate
Source: NVIDIA RTX 4090 specifications, 14 Oct 2026
Mini PC
Runs wellStrix Halo mini PC 64 GB
Faster than the recording
Around $2,199 · estimate
Source: Compute Market roundup, 14 Oct 2026
Official install guides
We link to the makers. We do not write our own install steps.
- MacWhisper's page · MacWhisper · Mac
- whisper.cpp on GitHub · whisper.cpp · Mac, Windows, Linux