NVIDIA DGX Spark vs M4 Max 128GB for local LLMs
87 reports on the NVIDIA DGX Spark and 52 on the M4 Max 128GB
Which is faster for local LLMs?
On Qwen3.8 125B · 6B active at 4-bit, the NVIDIA DGX Spark has 29.8 generation tokens/s (2 runs); the M4 Max 128GB has 57.2 generation tokens/s (2 runs); prompt processing 586.0 tokens/s (one run). Those are community reports whose engines and settings differ, so the gap is a rough sign, not a controlled measure of the two cards. Memory bandwidth, which caps how fast a card can write, is 2.0x higher on the M4 Max 128GB (273 GB/s on the NVIDIA DGX Spark, 546 on the M4 Max 128GB). Across 4 shared models with generation measurements on both cards, the NVIDIA DGX Spark's median is higher on 0 and the M4 Max 128GB's on 4.
- Memory
- 128GB unified
- Memory bandwidth
- 273 GB/s
- FP16 compute
- 125 TFLOPS
- Reports
- 87
- Memory
- 128GB unified
- Memory bandwidth
- 546 GB/s
- FP16 compute
- 18.4 TFLOPS
- Reports
- 52
Measured on both
Generation and prompt processing speeds from plain runs (one device, one request, no speculative decoding, the whole model in the device's memory) of the same model size at the same bit class. Each side shows the engines and reported context behind its median. Context can mean a configured window or prompt depth, so these are community comparisons with differing settings. How to read these
| Model | NVIDIA DGX Spark | M4 Max 128GB |
|---|---|---|
| Qwen3.8 125B · 6B active4-bit | 29.82 runsllama.cpp, SGLang128K to 256K context | 57.22 runsPP 586.0 (one run)oMLX, 1 not statedcontext not stated |
| Gemma 4 26B · 4B active4-bit | 59.12 runsPP 2657.0 (one run)llama.cpp, vLLM256K context, 1 not stated | 88.1one runPP 1408.1 (one run)llama.cppcontext not stated |
| gpt-oss 117B · 5.1B active4-bit | 52.9one runPP 1689.5 (one run)llama.cppcontext not stated | 85.4one runPP 809.5 (one run)llama.cppcontext not stated |
| Qwen3.6 35B · 3B active4-bit | 78.3one runvLLM128K context | 81.1one runPP 1423.5 (one run)llama.cppcontext not stated |
| Qwen3.8 27B4-bit | -0 runsPP 899.9 (one run)llama.cpp16K context | 21.8one runPP 236.6 (one run)llama.cppcontext not stated |
Estimated by the calculator
The quant the calculator recommends for each card and its estimated speed at a 32,768-token context with 32 GB of system RAM, from memory bandwidth and the model's shape. Where a model was also measured above, the measurement wins.
| Model | NVIDIA DGX Spark | M4 Max 128GB |
|---|---|---|
| Qwen3.8 125B · 6B active | 14.4 t/sQ6_K | 30.7 t/sQ5_K_S |
| Gemma 4 26B · 4B active | 10.8 t/sFP16 | 18.2 t/sFP16 |
| gpt-oss 117B · 5.1B active | 18.0 t/sQ6_K | 38.6 t/sQ5_K_S |
| Qwen3.6 35B · 3B active | 14.5 t/sFP16 | 21.2 t/sFP16 |
| Qwen3.8 27B | 4.0 t/sFP16 | 6.7 t/sFP16 |
| DeepSeek V4 Flash 284B · 13B active | 38.3 t/sQ2_K | 48.3 t/sQ2_K |
| Qwen3.6 27B | 4.0 t/sFP16 | 6.7 t/sFP16 |
| DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 552B · 16B active | doesn't fit at these settings | doesn't fit at these settings |
| GLM-5.3 320B · 18B active | 12.7 t/sQ2_K | doesn't fit at these settings |
| Qwen3.5 9B | 12.0 t/sFP16 | 20.2 t/sFP16 |
| Gemma 4 31B | 3.5 t/sFP16 | 5.9 t/sFP16 |
Change the context, RAM or model in the calculator: NVIDIA DGX Spark · M4 Max 128GB
Every report on each card, with its source: NVIDIA DGX Spark · M4 Max 128GB