GPUs & Macs › Apple M2 Max (38-core GPU)

Apple M2 Max (38-core GPU): local LLM speed

Llama 2 7B (Q4_0) generates 66.0 tokens/s on the Apple M2 Max (38-core GPU) (Metal), and processes prompts at 671 tokens/s.

Measured results

Model	Generate tok/s	Prompt tok/s	Quant	Backend	Test	Source
Llama 2 7B	66.0	671	Q4_0	Metal FA off	tg128	llama.cpp #4167 details
Llama 2 7B	41.8	678	Q8_0	Metal FA off	tg128	llama.cpp #4167 details
Llama 2 7B	24.6	756	F16	Metal FA off	tg128	llama.cpp #4167 details
Llama 3.2 1B Instruct	145	2,466	Q4_K_M	llamafile	LocalScore avg · n=2	LocalScore LocalScore details
Llama 3.1 8B Instruct	45.5	479	Q4_K_M	llamafile	LocalScore avg · n=2	LocalScore LocalScore details
Qwen2.5 14B Instruct	22.0	226	Q4_K_M	llamafile	LocalScore avg · n=3	LocalScore LocalScore LocalScore details

Vendor	Apple
Memory	Unified (depends on configuration)
Memory bandwidth	400 GB/s
GPU cores	38
Spec source	Wikipedia (Apple M2)
Spec note	theoretical 409.6

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What fits on the Apple M2 Max (38-core GPU)

Estimates for this chip are scaled from a measured run: Llama 2 7B F16 at 24.6 tok/s (Metal, source). Fit assumes the whole model in GPU memory with ~8K context.

With 16 GB unified memory

Model	Best quant that fits	File	Expected tok/s
Qwen3.8-27B	UD-IQ2_XXS	7.3 GB	45.7 estimate
gemma-4-12B-it	Q6_K	9.8 GB	33.9 estimate
Qwen3.5-9B	Q8_0	9.5 GB	34.9 estimate
Qwen3.5-4B	Q8_0	4.5 GB	74.1 estimate
Qwen3.6-35B-A3B	UD-IQ1_M	10.0 GB	193 estimate
gemma-4-26B-A4B-it	UD-IQ2_M	10.0 GB	108 estimate
MiMo-V2.6-Distill-Qwen-9B	Q8_0	9.5 GB	34.8 estimate
gemma-4-E4B-it	Q8_0	8.2 GB	40.5 estimate

With 36 GB unified memory

Model	Best quant that fits	File	Expected tok/s
Qwen3.8-27B	UD-Q6_K	22.0 GB	15.1 estimate
gemma-4-12B-it	Q8_0	12.7 GB	26.2 estimate
Qwen3.5-9B	Q8_0	9.5 GB	34.9 estimate
Qwen3.5-4B	Q8_0	4.5 GB	74.1 estimate
Qwen3.6-35B-A3B	UD-Q5_K_S	24.9 GB	77.7 estimate
gemma-4-26B-A4B-it	UD-Q6_K	23.2 GB	46.6 estimate
MiMo-V2.6-Distill-Qwen-9B	Q8_0	9.5 GB	34.8 estimate
gemma-4-E4B-it	Q8_0	8.2 GB	40.5 estimate

With 64 GB unified memory

Model	Best quant that fits	File	Expected tok/s
Qwen3.8-27B	Q8_0	29.0 GB	11.4 estimate
gemma-4-12B-it	Q8_0	12.7 GB	26.2 estimate
Qwen3.5-9B	Q8_0	9.5 GB	34.9 estimate
Qwen3.5-4B	Q8_0	4.5 GB	74.1 estimate
Qwen3.6-35B-A3B	Q8_0	36.9 GB	52.5 estimate
gemma-4-26B-A4B-it	Q8_0	26.9 GB	40.2 estimate
MiMo-V2.6-Distill-Qwen-9B	Q8_0	9.5 GB	34.8 estimate
gemma-4-E4B-it	Q8_0	8.2 GB	40.5 estimate

With 128 GB unified memory

Model	Best quant that fits	File	Expected tok/s
Qwen3.8-27B	Q8_0	29.0 GB	11.4 estimate
gemma-4-12B-it	Q8_0	12.7 GB	26.2 estimate
Qwen3.5-9B	Q8_0	9.5 GB	34.9 estimate
Qwen3.5-4B	Q8_0	4.5 GB	74.1 estimate
Qwen3.6-35B-A3B	Q8_0	36.9 GB	52.5 estimate
Qwen3.8-Flash-Next	UD-IQ3_XXS	82.0 GB	4.1 estimate
gemma-4-26B-A4B-it	Q8_0	26.9 GB	40.2 estimate
MiMo-V2.6-Distill-Qwen-9B	Q8_0	9.5 GB	34.8 estimate

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