GPUs & Macs › Apple M5 Max (40-core GPU)

Apple M5 Max (40-core GPU): local LLM speed

Llama 2 7B (Q4_0) generates 120 tokens/s on the Apple M5 Max (40-core GPU) (Metal), and processes prompts at 3,220 tokens/s.

Measured results

Model	Generate tok/s	Prompt tok/s	Quant	Backend	Test	Source
Llama 2 7B	120	3,220	Q4_0	Metal FA off	tg128	llama.cpp #4167 details
Llama 2 7B	72.4	3,144	Q8_0	Metal FA off	tg128	llama.cpp #4167 details
Llama 2 7B	37.1	3,158	F16	Metal FA off	tg128	llama.cpp #4167 details
Llama 3.2 1B Instruct	262	4,307	Q4_K_M	llamafile	LocalScore avg · n=2	LocalScore LocalScore details
Llama 3.1 8B Instruct	71.2	718	Q4_K_M	llamafile	LocalScore avg	LocalScore details
Qwen2.5 14B Instruct	39.5	392	Q4_K_M	llamafile	LocalScore avg · n=2	LocalScore LocalScore details

Vendor	Apple
Memory	Unified (depends on configuration)
Memory bandwidth	614 GB/s
GPU cores	40
Spec source	Wikipedia (Apple M5)
Spec note	40-core GPU bin

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What fits on the Apple M5 Max (40-core GPU)

Estimates for this chip are scaled from a measured run: Llama 2 7B Q8_0 at 72.4 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	71.4 estimate
gemma-4-12B-it	Q6_K	9.8 GB	53.0 estimate
Qwen3.5-9B	Q8_0	9.5 GB	54.4 estimate
Qwen3.5-4B	Q8_0	4.5 GB	116 estimate
Qwen3.6-35B-A3B	UD-IQ1_M	10.0 GB	301 estimate
gemma-4-26B-A4B-it	UD-IQ2_M	10.0 GB	168 estimate
MiMo-V2.6-Distill-Qwen-9B	Q8_0	9.5 GB	54.3 estimate
gemma-4-E4B-it	Q8_0	8.2 GB	63.3 estimate

With 36 GB unified memory

Model	Best quant that fits	File	Expected tok/s
Qwen3.8-27B	UD-Q6_K	22.0 GB	23.6 estimate
gemma-4-12B-it	Q8_0	12.7 GB	40.9 estimate
Qwen3.5-9B	Q8_0	9.5 GB	54.4 estimate
Qwen3.5-4B	Q8_0	4.5 GB	116 estimate
Qwen3.6-35B-A3B	UD-Q5_K_S	24.9 GB	121 estimate
gemma-4-26B-A4B-it	UD-Q6_K	23.2 GB	72.8 estimate
MiMo-V2.6-Distill-Qwen-9B	Q8_0	9.5 GB	54.3 estimate
gemma-4-E4B-it	Q8_0	8.2 GB	63.3 estimate

With 64 GB unified memory

Model	Best quant that fits	File	Expected tok/s
Qwen3.8-27B	Q8_0	29.0 GB	17.9 estimate
gemma-4-12B-it	Q8_0	12.7 GB	40.9 estimate
Qwen3.5-9B	Q8_0	9.5 GB	54.4 estimate
Qwen3.5-4B	Q8_0	4.5 GB	116 estimate
Qwen3.6-35B-A3B	Q8_0	36.9 GB	82.0 estimate
gemma-4-26B-A4B-it	Q8_0	26.9 GB	62.8 estimate
MiMo-V2.6-Distill-Qwen-9B	Q8_0	9.5 GB	54.3 estimate
gemma-4-E4B-it	Q8_0	8.2 GB	63.3 estimate

With 128 GB unified memory

Model	Best quant that fits	File	Expected tok/s
Qwen3.8-27B	Q8_0	29.0 GB	17.9 estimate
gemma-4-12B-it	Q8_0	12.7 GB	40.9 estimate
Qwen3.5-9B	Q8_0	9.5 GB	54.4 estimate
Qwen3.5-4B	Q8_0	4.5 GB	116 estimate
Qwen3.6-35B-A3B	Q8_0	36.9 GB	82.0 estimate
Qwen3.8-Flash-Next	UD-IQ3_XXS	82.0 GB	6.3 estimate
gemma-4-26B-A4B-it	Q8_0	26.9 GB	62.8 estimate
MiMo-V2.6-Distill-Qwen-9B	Q8_0	9.5 GB	54.3 estimate

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