Hardware · Apple Silicon
What AI models can the Apple M5 Max (128 GB) run?
- Unified memory
- 128 GB
- Usable for models
- 96.0 GB
- Memory bandwidth
- 614 GB/s
- FP16 compute
- 18.9 TFLOPS
- Released
- 2026
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 128 GB.
More about this hardware
| Maker | Apple Silicon |
|---|---|
| Type | Apple silicon (system on a chip) |
| Chip | Apple M5 Max |
Apps that run models well on the Apple M5 Max (128 GB)
3 products with the Apple M5 Max (128 GB)
Best LLMs for the Apple M5 Max (128 GB)
| Quality | Model | Quant | Memory | Speed | Runs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 93Excellent quality (A+) · 93 of 100: how capable the model is at F16, whatever it runs on. Match score 97/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | Qwen3.6 35B-A3B | F16 | 80.3 GB | 41.5 tok/s | Runs great |
| 93Excellent quality (A+) · 93 of 100: how capable the model is at F16, whatever it runs on. Match score 96/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | MiniCPM-V 4.7 35B-A3B | F16 | 78.9 GB | 41.5 tok/s | Runs great |
| 93Excellent quality (A+) · 93 of 100: how capable the model is at F16, whatever it runs on. Match score 96/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | Qwen3.5 35B-A3B | F16 | 80.3 GB | 41.5 tok/s | Runs great |
| 92Excellent quality (A+) · 92 of 100: how capable the model is at F16, whatever it runs on. Match score 96/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | Nex N2 Mini (35B-A3B) | F16 | 78.7 GB | 41.5 tok/s | Runs great |
| 91Excellent quality (A+) · 91 of 100: how capable the model is at Q6_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 96/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | Nemotron 3.5 Bolt 74B-A9B | Q6_K | 69.8 GB | 42.4 tok/s | Runs great |
| 91Excellent quality (A+) · 91 of 100: how capable the model is at F16, whatever it runs on. Match score 95/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | KAT-Coder V2.5 Dev (35B-A3B) | F16 | 77.8 GB | 41.5 tok/s | Runs great |
| 91Excellent quality (A+) · 91 of 100: how capable the model is at F16, whatever it runs on. Match score 95/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | Sage-A1.5 35B-A3B | F16 | 80.3 GB | 41.5 tok/s | Runs great |
| 90Excellent quality (A+) · 90 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. | Kolibri 1 (78B-A3.5B) | Q6_K | 72.5 GB | 88.6 tok/s | Runs great |
| 90Excellent quality (A+) · 90 of 100: how capable the model is at F16, whatever it runs on. Match score 95/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | Ornith 1.5 35B-A3B | F16 | 80.3 GB | 41.5 tok/s | Runs great |
| 89Excellent quality (A+) · 89 of 100: how capable the model is at F16, whatever it runs on. Match score 95/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | Apodex 1.1 Mini (35B-A3B) | F16 | 80.3 GB | 41.5 tok/s | Runs great |
| 89Excellent quality (A+) · 89 of 100: how capable the model is at F16, whatever it runs on. Match score 95/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | Ornith 1.0 35B-A3B | F16 | 80.3 GB | 41.5 tok/s | Runs great |
| 88Excellent quality (A+) · 88 of 100: how capable the model is at F16, whatever it runs on. Match score 94/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | GLM-4.7 Flash (30B-A3B) | F16 | 71.2 GB | 41.5 tok/s | Runs great |
Best Image models for the Apple M5 Max (128 GB)
| Quality | Model | Quant | Memory | Speed | Runs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 91Excellent quality (A+) · 91 of 100: how capable the model is at FP8, whatever it runs on. Match score 87/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | MiniMax H3 Image | FP8 | 72.0 GB | 52 s | Slow |
| 84Great quality (A) · 84 of 100: how capable the model is at FP16, whatever it runs on. Match score 86/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | FLUX.2 [klein] 9B | FP16 | 37.1 GB | 10 s | Runs great |
| 92Excellent quality (A+) · 92 of 100: how capable the model is at FP16, whatever it runs on. Match score 85/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | Krea 2 Turbo | FP16 | 37.4 GB | 25 s | Runs well |
| 91Excellent quality (A+) · 91 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8 GGUF, whatever it runs on. Match score 83/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | FLUX.2 [dev] | Q8 GGUF | 61.9 GB | 4.0 min | Very slow |
| 90Excellent quality (A+) · 90 of 100: how capable the model is at FP8, whatever it runs on. Match score 83/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | Cosmos3-Super Text2Image (64B) | FP8 | 69.1 GB | 3.4 min | Very slow |
| 86Excellent quality (A+) · 86 of 100: how capable the model is at FP16, whatever it runs on. Match score 83/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | Ming-Image 0.1 Design | FP16 | 63.9 GB | 1.6 min | Slow |
Best Video models for the Apple M5 Max (128 GB)
| Quality | Model | Quant | Memory | Speed | Runs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 86Excellent quality (A+) · 86 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. | LTX-2.5 (22B, video + audio) | FP8 | 48.3 GB | 7.8 min | Runs well |
| 86Excellent quality (A+) · 86 of 100: how capable the model is at FP16, whatever it runs on. Match score 82/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | LTX-2.3 | FP16 | 75.4 GB | 38.3 min | Slow |
| 89Excellent quality (A+) · 89 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8 GGUF, whatever it runs on. Match score 82/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | MiniMax H3 (33B, video + audio) | Q8 GGUF | 68.2 GB | 1.9 h | Very slow |
| 82Great quality (A) · 82 of 100: how capable the model is at FP16, whatever it runs on. Match score 81/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | LTX-2 (19B, video + audio) | FP16 | 75.4 GB | 38.3 min | Slow |
| 86Excellent quality (A+) · 86 of 100: how capable the model is at FP16, whatever it runs on. Match score 79/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | Wan 2.2 I2V A14B | FP16 | 58.0 GB | 2.6 h | Very slow |
Best Decision models for the Apple M5 Max (128 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 | 9.7 GB | 34 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 | 9.7 GB | 34 ms | Runs great |
| 82Great quality (A) · 82 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. | d1 3B | F16 | 14.6 GB | 93 ms | Runs great |
| 82Great quality (A) · 82 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. | mxbai-rerank-large v2 | F16 | 11.4 GB | 81 ms | Runs great |
| 84Great quality (A) · 84 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. | Intern-Decision 4B | Q8_0 | 13.2 GB | 117 ms | Runs great |
| 90Excellent quality (A+) · 90 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. | Qwen3 Reranker 4B | Q8_0 | 12.8 GB | 192 ms | Runs well |
| 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 | 26 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 | 17 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.