Hardware · Apple Silicon
What AI models can the Apple M4 Max (36 GB) run?
- Unified memory
- 36.0 GB
- Usable for models
- 24.1 GB
- Memory bandwidth
- 410 GB/s
- FP16 compute
- 14.7 TFLOPS
- Released
- 2024
macOS lets the GPU use roughly two-thirds to three-quarters of unified memory by default, so we plan around that figure rather than the full 36.0 GB.
More about this hardware
| Maker | Apple Silicon |
|---|---|
| Type | Apple silicon (system on a chip) |
| Chip | Apple M4 Max |
Apps that run models well on the Apple M4 Max (36 GB)
3 products with the Apple M4 Max (36 GB)
Best LLMs for the Apple M4 Max (36 GB)
| Quality | Model | Quant | Memory | Speed | Runs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 91Excellent quality (A+) · 91 of 100: how capable the model is at Q6_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 95/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | Gemma 4 26B-A4B | Q6_K | 24.1 GB | 61.6 tok/s | Runs welltight fit |
| 87Excellent quality (A+) · 87 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 93/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | Nex N2 Mini (35B-A3B) | Q4_K_M | 24.1 GB | 97.2 tok/s | Runs welltight fit |
| 86Excellent quality (A+) · 86 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 92/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | KAT-Coder V2.5 Dev (35B-A3B) | Q4_K_M | 23.8 GB | 97.2 tok/s | Runs welltight fit |
| 83Great quality (A) · 83 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 92/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | Raon-1 mini Preview (30B-A4B) | Q4_K_M | 20.2 GB | 75.3 tok/s | Runs great |
| 83Great quality (A) · 83 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 91/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | GLM-4.7 Flash (30B-A3B) | Q4_K_M | 22.0 GB | 97.2 tok/s | Runs welltight fit |
| 82Great quality (A) · 82 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 91/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | Agents-A1 35B-A3B | Q4_K_M | 24.1 GB | 97.2 tok/s | Runs welltight fit |
| 82Great quality (A) · 82 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 91/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | Qwen AgentWorld 35B-A3B | Q4_K_M | 23.8 GB | 97.2 tok/s | Runs welltight fit |
| 78Great quality (A) · 78 of 100: how capable the model is at Q3_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 90/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | Qwen3.6 35B-A3B | Q3_K_M | 20.3 GB | 116 tok/s | Runs great |
| 80Great quality (A) · 80 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 90/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | Hunyuan Hy-Memory 30B-A3B | Q4_K_M | 21.7 GB | 97.2 tok/s | Runs welltight fit |
| 78Great quality (A) · 78 of 100: how capable the model is at Q3_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 90/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | MiniCPM-V 4.7 35B-A3B | Q3_K_M | 20.0 GB | 116 tok/s | Runs great |
| 90Excellent quality (A+) · 90 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 90/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | Qwen3.8 27B | Q4_K_M | 20.0 GB | 15.6 tok/s | Runs well |
| 78Great quality (A) · 78 of 100: how capable the model is at Q3_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 90/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | Qwen3.5 35B-A3B | Q3_K_M | 20.3 GB | 116 tok/s | Runs great |
Best Image models for the Apple M4 Max (36 GB)
| Quality | Model | Quant | Memory | Speed | Runs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 82Great quality (A) · 82 of 100: how capable the model is at FP8, whatever it runs on. Match score 91/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | FLUX.2 [klein] 9B | FP8 | 19.9 GB | 11 s | Runs great |
| 78Great quality (A) · 78 of 100: how capable the model is at FP16, whatever it runs on. Match score 90/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | FLUX.2 [klein] 4B | FP16 | 18.1 GB | 6.9 s | Runs great |
| 90Excellent quality (A+) · 90 of 100: how capable the model is at FP8, whatever it runs on. Match score 89/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | Krea 2 Turbo | FP8 | 20.2 GB | 27 s | Runs well |
| 83Great quality (A) · 83 of 100: how capable the model is at FP8, whatever it runs on. Match score 86/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | ERNIE-Image Turbo | FP8 | 14.5 GB | 20 s | Runs well |
| 82Great quality (A) · 82 of 100: how capable the model is at FP8, whatever it runs on. Match score 86/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | Z-Image Turbo | FP8 | 12.6 GB | 16 s | Runs well |
| 89Excellent quality (A+) · 89 of 100: how capable the model is at FP8, whatever it runs on. Match score 84/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | FLUX 3 Image Klein | FP8 | 12.4 GB | 36 s | Runs well |
Best Video models for the Apple M4 Max (36 GB)
| Quality | Model | Quant | Memory | Speed | Runs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 50Fair quality (C) · 50 of 100: how capable the model is at FP16, whatever it runs on. Match score 77/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | LTX-Video 2B | FP16 | 17.5 GB | 2.9 min | Runs great |
| 83Great quality (A) · 83 of 100: how capable the model is at FP8, whatever it runs on. Match score 75/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | Bernini-R A14B (video generation + editing) | FP8 | 20.3 GB | 78.6 min | Very slowencoder unloaded after use |
| 86Excellent quality (A+) · 86 of 100: how capable the model is at FP8, whatever it runs on. Match score 73/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | LTX-2.5 (22B, video + audio) | FP8 | 19.7 GB | 12.3 min | SlowCPU offload |
| 70Great quality (A) · 70 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4 GGUF, whatever it runs on. Match score 72/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | Wan 2.2 S2V 14B (speech to video) | Q4 GGUF | 21.6 GB | 2.3 h | Very slowtight fit |
| 74Great quality (A) · 74 of 100: how capable the model is at FP8, whatever it runs on. Match score 71/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | HY-OmniWeaving (8.3B, unified video) | FP8 | 15.7 GB | 57.9 min | Very slowencoder unloaded after use |
Best Decision models for the Apple M4 Max (36 GB)
| Quality | Model | Quant | Memory | Speed | Runs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 86Excellent quality (A+) · 86 of 100: how capable the model is at F16, whatever it runs on. Match score 93/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | Jina Reranker v3.5 | F16 | 4.0 GB | 44 ms | Runs great |
| 84Great quality (A) · 84 of 100: how capable the model is at F16, whatever it runs on. Match score 92/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | Jina Reranker v3 | F16 | 4.0 GB | 44 ms | Runs great |
| 82Great quality (A) · 82 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 91/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | mxbai-rerank-large v2 | Q8_0 | 4.2 GB | 97 ms | Runs great |
| 82Great quality (A) · 82 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 91/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | d1 3B | Q8_0 | 5.9 GB | 106 ms | Runs great |
| 80Great quality (A) · 80 of 100: how capable the model is at F16, whatever it runs on. Match score 91/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | FRIDA-Decisions | F16 | 2.4 GB | 33 ms | Runs great |
| 80Great quality (A) · 80 of 100: how capable the model is at F16, whatever it runs on. Match score 91/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | GLiNER2.5 Decide | F16 | 1.7 GB | 21 ms | Runs great |
| 80Great quality (A) · 80 of 100: how capable the model is at F16, whatever it runs on. Match score 91/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | Qwen3 Reranker 0.6B | F16 | 4.0 GB | 44 ms | Runs great |
| 80Great quality (A) · 80 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 90/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | zerank-1 small | Q8_0 | 4.6 GB | 108 ms | Runs great |
Estimates come from published hardware specs and our open formulas, not from running the model on your machine. Real speed varies with runtime, drivers and settings. Numbers marked “Measured” come from a linked benchmark.