Is the M5 Max faster than the M4 Max for LLMs?

The M5 Max reads memory about 12% faster than the M4 Max (614 vs 546 GB/s), so it writes about 12% faster with any model that fits both. Reading a long prompt depends on GPU compute instead, which this comparison doesn’t cover.

Which can run bigger models, the M4 Max or the M5 Max?

Neither: both go up to 128 GB. At that size the M4 Max runs 47 and the M5 Max 47 of 73 open models well; the faster one clears more of them at 10 tokens a second.

M4 Max vs M5 Max for local LLMs: memory, speed, which to buy

Side by side

	M4 Max	M5 Max
Memory sizes	36, 48, 64, 128 GB	36, 48, 64, 128 GB
Memory bandwidth	410–546 GB/s	460–614 GB/s
For models, at most	about 96 GB	about 96 GB
Models that run well	47 of 73	47 of 73
MLX seat class	Pro	Pro Latest
Found in	MacBook Pro (14-inch, M4 Pro or M4 Max, 2024), MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2024), Mac Studio (2025)	MacBook Pro (14-inch, M5 Pro or M5 Max), MacBook Pro (16-inch, M5 Pro or M5 Max), Mac Studio (M5 Max or M5 Ultra)

Speed with popular models

Tokens a second for one conversation, each chip at its largest memory size (128 GB and 128 GB), with the best version of the model that fits.

Model	M4 Max	M5 Max
Llama 3.1 8B Instruct8B	29–51 8-bit	33–58 8-bit
gpt-oss-20b21B · 3.6B active	129–230 native 4.25-bit	145–259 native 4.25-bit
Qwen3.6 35B A3B35B · 3B active	77–137 8-bit	86–154 8-bit
Qwen3.8 27B27B	11–20 6-bit	10–17 8-bit
Llama 3.3 70B Instruct70B	3–6 8-bit	4–7 8-bit
gpt-oss-120b117B · 5.1B active	91–162 native 4.25-bit	102–182 native 4.25-bit
Qwen3.5 122B A10B122B · 10B active	44–78 4-bit	49–88 4-bit
DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731284B · 13B active	60–107 2-bit lower quality	67–120 2-bit lower quality

Questions

Is the M5 Max faster than the M4 Max for LLMs?: The M5 Max reads memory about 12% faster than the M4 Max (614 vs 546 GB/s), so it writes about 12% faster with any model that fits both. Reading a long prompt depends on GPU compute instead, which this comparison doesn’t cover.
Which can run bigger models, the M4 Max or the M5 Max?: Neither: both go up to 128 GB. At that size the M4 Max runs 47 and the M5 Max 47 of 73 open models well; the faster one clears more of them at 10 tokens a second.

More comparisons

The M4 Max for local AI · The M5 Max for local AI · Compare every model · The best Mac for local LLMs

How it’s worked out

Memory: the model’s parameters at 8, 6, 4, 3 or 2 bits per weight plus MLX’s group scales (half a bit per weight), or its native format, with room for the context on top. By default macOS lets the GPU use about 75% of unified memory. Speed: memory bandwidth divided by the bytes read per token is the ceiling for one conversation; in llama.cpp’s public Apple Silicon benchmarks real runs reach about 45% to 80% of it, which is the range shown. These are estimates, not measurements: measure your own Mac on MLX Bench. Model figures from each official model card, chip figures from Apple’s Tech Specs. Checked 2026-10-19. Same data as mlx.app/compare.