NVIDIA DGX Spark vs M5 Max 48GB for local LLMs
86 reports on the NVIDIA DGX Spark and 67 on the M5 Max 48GB
Which is faster for local LLMs?
On Gemma 4 26B · 4B active at 4-bit, the NVIDIA DGX Spark has 59.1 generation tokens/s (2 runs); prompt processing 2657.0 tokens/s (one run); the M5 Max 48GB has 116.9 generation tokens/s (one run); prompt processing 3423.2 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 2.3x higher on the M5 Max 48GB (273 GB/s on the NVIDIA DGX Spark, 614 on the M5 Max 48GB). Across 2 shared models with generation measurements on both cards, the NVIDIA DGX Spark's median is higher on 0 and the M5 Max 48GB's on 2.
- Memory
- 128GB unified
- Memory bandwidth
- 273 GB/s
- FP16 compute
- 125 TFLOPS
- Reports
- 86
- Memory
- 48GB unified
- Memory bandwidth
- 614 GB/s
- FP16 compute
- not on record
- Reports
- 67
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 | M5 Max 48GB |
|---|---|---|
| Gemma 4 26B · 4B active4-bit | 59.12 runsPP 2657.0 (one run)llama.cpp, vLLM256K context, 1 not stated | 116.9one runPP 3423.2 (one run)llama.cppcontext not stated |
| Qwen3.6 35B · 3B active4-bit | 78.3one runvLLM128K context | 137.72 runsPP 3338.1 (2 runs)llama.cpp, MLXcontext 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 | M5 Max 48GB |
|---|---|---|
| Gemma 4 26B · 4B active | 10.8 t/sFP16 | 43.2 t/sQ8_0 |
| Qwen3.6 35B · 3B active | 14.5 t/sFP16 | 88.4 t/sQ5_K_M |
| Qwen3.8 27B | 4.0 t/sFP16 | 22.3 t/sQ6_K |
| Qwen3.8 125B · 6B active | 14.4 t/sQ6_K | doesn't fit at these settings |
| DeepSeek V4 Flash 284B · 13B active | 38.3 t/sQ2_K | doesn't fit at these settings |
| Qwen3.6 27B | 4.0 t/sFP16 | 22.3 t/sQ6_K |
| 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 |
Change the context, RAM or model in the calculator: NVIDIA DGX Spark · M5 Max 48GB
Every report on each card, with its source: NVIDIA DGX Spark · M5 Max 48GB