M2 Max 32GB vs M5 Max 48GB for local LLMs
3 reports on the M2 Max 32GB and 67 on the M5 Max 48GB
Which is faster for local LLMs?
On Qwen3.6 35B · 3B active at 4-bit, the M2 Max 32GB has 39.3 generation tokens/s (2 runs); prompt processing 671.4 tokens/s (one run); the M5 Max 48GB has 137.7 generation tokens/s (2 runs); prompt processing 3338.1 tokens/s (2 runs). 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 50% higher on the M5 Max 48GB (410 GB/s on the M2 Max 32GB, 614 on the M5 Max 48GB).
- Memory
- 32GB unified
- Memory bandwidth
- 410 GB/s
- FP16 compute
- 13.6 TFLOPS
- Reports
- 3
- 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 | M2 Max 32GB | M5 Max 48GB |
|---|---|---|
| Qwen3.6 35B · 3B active4-bit | 39.32 runsPP 671.4 (one run)llama.cpp, 1 not stated4K to 60K 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 | M2 Max 32GB | M5 Max 48GB |
|---|---|---|
| Qwen3.6 35B · 3B active | 76.1 t/sQ3_K_M | 88.4 t/sQ5_K_M |
| Qwen3.8 27B | 20.9 t/sQ4_K_S | 22.3 t/sQ6_K |
| Qwen3.8 125B · 6B active | doesn't fit at these settings | doesn't fit at these settings |
| DeepSeek V4 Flash 284B · 13B active | doesn't fit at these settings | doesn't fit at these settings |
| Qwen3.6 27B | 20.9 t/sQ4_K_S | 22.3 t/sQ6_K |
| Gemma 4 26B · 4B active | 46.1 t/sQ4_K_M | 43.2 t/sQ8_0 |
| DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 552B · 16B active | doesn't fit at these settings | doesn't fit at these settings |
Change the context, RAM or model in the calculator: M2 Max 32GB · M5 Max 48GB
Every report on each card, with its source: M2 Max 32GB · M5 Max 48GB