Mac Studio M5 Max 128GB Price & Used Prices: Which Local LLMs Can It Run?
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The Mac Studio M5 Max 128GB (Apple, 2026) runs the 176B Qwen3.8 Flash Next at 4-bit at about 77 tokens/s. New neural accelerators speed up long documents.
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Mac Studio M5 Max 128GB price history
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Full Mac Studio M5 Max 128GB specifications
- Memory128 GB · LPDDR5X-9600 · unified memory
- Bandwidth614 GB/s
- Chip
- Apple M5 Max
- CPU
- 18-core
- GPU
- 40-core
- Storage
- 512 GB / 1 TB / 2 TB / 4 TB / 8 TB
- Ecosystem
- Metal
- Power
- 480 W
- Weight
- 2.73 kg
- Model identifier
- Mac17,14
- Type
- Unified memory
- Launch date
- Aug 25, 2026
What LLMs can a single Mac Studio M5 Max 128GB run?
A single M5 Max 128GB tops out at Qwen3.8 Flash Next at 4-bit once the macOS GPU memory limit is raised. MoE above 280B needs 2-bit; context hits 1M.
| Model | Size | Runs? | Speed t/s | Max context |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Gemma 4 31B30.7B | 11.8 GB | Runs | 35.7 | 256K |
 Qwen3.6 35B A3B36B (3B active) | 12.3 GB | Runs | 141.7 | 256K |
| Qwen3.8 Flash Next176B (6B active) | 78.9 GB | Runs | 94.1 | 256K |
 DeepSeek V4 Flash284B (13B active) | 96.8 GB | Runs | 70.6 | 1M |
 Hy3295B (21B active) | 107.2 GB | Runs | 42.2 | 86K |
 GLM 5.3 Flash320B (18B active) | 108.7 GB | Runs | 56.2 | 1M |
| Model | Size | Runs? | Speed t/s | Max context |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gemma 4 31B30.7B | 18.3 GB | Runs | 23.9 | 256K |
| Qwen3.6 35B A3B36B (3B active) | 22.1 GB | Runs | 113.7 | 256K |
| Qwen3.8 Flash Next176B (6B active) | 111.3 GB | Runs | 77.1 | 256K |
| DeepSeek V4 Flash284B (13B active) | 155.1 GB | Too big | — | — |
| Hy3295B (21B active) | 182.2 GB | Too big | — | — |
| GLM 5.3 Flash320B (18B active) | 199.7 GB | Too big | — | — |
| Model | Size | Runs? | Speed t/s | Max context |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gemma 4 31B30.7B | 32.6 GB | Runs | 13.8 | 256K |
| Qwen3.6 35B A3B36B (3B active) | 36.9 GB | Runs | 87.6 | 256K |
| Qwen3.8 Flash Next176B (6B active) | 188.2 GB | Too big | — | — |
| DeepSeek V4 Flash284B (13B active) | 161.9 GB | Too big | — | — |
| Hy3295B (21B active) | 317.7 GB | Too big | — | — |
| GLM 5.3 Flash320B (18B active) | 341 GB | Too big | — | — |
RunsFits fully in VRAM; speed is estimated from VRAM bandwidth.
Too bigWon’t fit on one card at this quantization, even with RAM offload.
Full calculation rules are on the Methodology page.
Who it suits
Good fit
- You want to run coding agents locally and often process long code
Community tests show about 3,200 tokens/s of prompt processing, on par with the DGX Spark and more than three times the M4 Max
- You mainly run 30B-class MoE models
Qwen3.6 35B A3B at 4-bit runs at about 114 tokens/s, and GLM 4.7 Flash at about 111
- You want to try DeepSeek V4 Flash
At 2-bit (96.8 GB) it runs at about 71 tokens/s with up to 1M of context
Not a good fit
- You want Hy3 or DeepSeek V4 Flash at 4-bit on one machine
They start at 155 GB, which 128GB can't hold, so look at the M5 Ultra or a used M3 Ultra 512GB
- You don't plan to update your OS and tools
The neural accelerators need macOS 26.2 or later plus a recent MLX or llama.cpp
Before you buy
128GB requires the 40-core GPU
The M5 Max comes with a 32-core or 40-core GPU, and 128GB is only available with the 40-core tier, which has 614 GB/s of bandwidth; the 32-core version has only 460 GB/s. Memory can't be added after purchase, so get the configuration right the first time.
What it takes to use the neural accelerators
The neural accelerators only kick in with software support: MLX needs macOS 26.2 or later, and official llama.cpp also enables them on macOS 26.2 or later. Watch out for LM Studio's bundled llama.cpp runtime: a report this June says it doesn't enable this path on the M5, making prompt processing for GGUF models 2 to 3 times slower, and the issue is still open. Switching to LM Studio's MLX engine avoids the problem.
For 512GB, look at the M5 Ultra
Models over 150 GB, such as DeepSeek V4 Flash at 4-bit, don't fit in 128GB. For those, look at the M5 Ultra from the same generation: up to 512GB (with the 80-core GPU version) and 1.2 TB/s of bandwidth, with the 512GB version shipping in late October. Apple says it processes prompts up to 4 times as fast as the M3 Ultra.
Linking multiple units
The Mac Studio's Thunderbolt 5 supports RDMA, so several units connected into a cluster can run models too big for one, on macOS 26.2 or later. Apple says a four-unit cluster runs inference up to 3 times as fast as a single unit.
Compared with similar machines
Mac Studio M5 Max 128GB vs Mac Studio M4 Max 128GB, MacBook Pro M5 Max 128GB, and DGX Spark 128GB: price, memory, bandwidth, compute and local LLM speed compared.
| Spec | Mac Studio M5 Max 128GB | Mac Studio M4 Max 128GB | MacBook Pro M5 Max 128GB |  DGX Spark 128GB |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Memory | 128 GB | 128 GBSame | 128 GBSame | 128 GBSame |
| Bandwidth | 614 GB/s | 546 GB/s11% lower | 614 GB/sSame | 273 GB/s56% lower |
| BF16 / FP16 compute | — | — | — | 125 TFLOPS |
| INT8 compute | — | — | — | 250 TOPS |
| Qwen3.8 27B speed (2-bit) | 43.9 t/s | 39.3 t/s10% slower | 43.9 t/sSame | 20.2 t/s54% slower |
| Largest dense model (4-bit) | 222B | 222BSame | 222BSame | 222BSame |
| Power | 480 W | 480 WSame | 140 W71% lower | 240 W50% lower |
| Released | 2026-08 | 2025-03 | 2026-03 | 2025-10 |
| eBay median |
As an eBay Partner, VRAMGlass may be compensated if you buy through the eBay links on this page. The price you pay stays the same.
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