Apple MacBook Pro (14-inch, M5 Pro or M5 Max)

Hardware · Apple Silicon

What AI models can the Apple M5 Max (36 GB) run?

Unified memory
36.0 GB
Usable for models
24.1 GB
Memory bandwidth
460 GB/s
FP16 compute
15.1 TFLOPS
Released
2026
464 / 622 LLMs run Best: Gemma 4 26B-A4B 58 / 61 Image models run Best: FLUX.2 [klein] 9B 31 / 43 Video models run Best: LTX-Video 2B 67 / 70 Decision models run Best: Jina Reranker v3.5

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

MakerApple Silicon
TypeApple silicon (system on a chip)
ChipApple M5 Max

Apps that run models well on the Apple M5 Max (36 GB)

macOS

  1. LM StudioRuns the MLX build, typically 20–35% faster than GGUF for a model with 8B active parameters on Apple silicon.
  2. OllamaOne command with Ollama’s own build of this model.
  3. MLX LMRuns the MLX build, typically 20–35% faster than GGUF for a model with 8B active parameters on Apple silicon.
  4. JanRuns the MLX build, typically 20–35% faster than GGUF for a model with 8B active parameters on Apple silicon.

For a typical model that fits in memory. Each model page picks the best app for that model on this hardware. All apps

3 products with the Apple M5 Max (36 GB)

Best LLMs for the Apple M5 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-A4BGoogle Q6_K 24.1 GB 67.2 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)Nex-AGI Q4_K_M 24.1 GB 105 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)Kuaishou Q4_K_M 23.8 GB 105 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)KRAFTON Q4_K_M 20.2 GB 81.9 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)Zhipu AI Q4_K_M 22.0 GB 105 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-A3BInternScience Q4_K_M 24.1 GB 105 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-A3BAlibaba Q4_K_M 23.8 GB 105 tok/s Runs welltight fit
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 27BAlibaba Q4_K_M 20.0 GB 17.5 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. Qwen3.6 35B-A3BAlibaba Q3_K_M 20.3 GB 125 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-A3BTencent Q4_K_M 21.7 GB 105 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-A3BOpenBMB Q3_K_M 20.0 GB 125 tok/s Runs great
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-A3BAlibaba Q3_K_M 20.3 GB 125 tok/s Runs great

Best Image models for the Apple M5 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] 9BBlack Forest Labs 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] 4BBlack Forest Labs FP16 18.1 GB 6.8 s Runs great
90Excellent quality (A+) · 90 of 100: how capable the model is at FP8, whatever it runs on. Match score 90/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. Krea 2 TurboKrea FP8 20.2 GB 26 s Runs well
83Great quality (A) · 83 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. ERNIE-Image TurboBaidu 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 TurboAlibaba (Tongyi) FP8 12.6 GB 15 s Runs well
89Excellent quality (A+) · 89 of 100: how capable the model is at FP8, whatever it runs on. Match score 85/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. FLUX 3 Image KleinBlack Forest Labs FP8 12.4 GB 35 s Runs well

Best Video models for the Apple M5 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 2BLightricks FP16 17.5 GB 2.8 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)ByteDance FP8 20.3 GB 77.1 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)Lightricks FP8 19.7 GB 12.1 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)Alibaba 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)Tencent FP8 15.7 GB 56.7 min Very slowencoder unloaded after use

Best Decision models for the Apple M5 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 v3.5Jina AI F16 4.0 GB 42 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 v3Jina AI F16 4.0 GB 42 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 v2Mixedbread Q8_0 4.2 GB 94 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 3BLiquid AI Q8_0 5.9 GB 102 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-DecisionsSber AI F16 2.4 GB 32 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 DecideFastino 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 0.6BAlibaba F16 4.0 GB 42 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 smallZeroEntropy Q8_0 4.6 GB 105 ms Runs great

Best LLMs by task on this hardware Open in Model Finder

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.

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