M4 16GB vs M4 Max 128GB for local LLMs
26 reports on the M4 16GB and 52 on the M4 Max 128GB
Which is faster for local LLMs?
On Gemma 4 26B · 4B active at 4-bit, the M4 16GB has 30.9 generation tokens/s (one run); the M4 Max 128GB has 88.1 generation tokens/s (one run); prompt processing 1408.1 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 4.6x higher on the M4 Max 128GB (120 GB/s on the M4 16GB, 546 on the M4 Max 128GB). Across 2 shared models with generation measurements on both cards, the M4 16GB's median is higher on 0 and the M4 Max 128GB's on 2.
- Memory
- 16GB unified
- Memory bandwidth
- 120 GB/s
- FP16 compute
- 4.3 TFLOPS
- Reports
- 26
- 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 | M4 16GB | M4 Max 128GB |
|---|---|---|
| Gemma 4 26B · 4B active4-bit | 30.9one runllama.cpp64K context | 88.1one runPP 1408.1 (one run)llama.cppcontext not stated |
| Qwen3.5 4B4-bit | 28.3one runPP 352.4 (one run)llama.cppcontext not stated | 101.4one runPP 1476.8 (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 | M4 16GB | M4 Max 128GB |
|---|---|---|
| Gemma 4 26B · 4B active | doesn't fit at these settings | 18.2 t/sFP16 |
| Qwen3.5 4B | 22.8 t/sQ8_0 | 45.5 t/sFP16 |
| Qwen3.8 27B | doesn't fit at these settings | 6.7 t/sFP16 |
| Qwen3.8 125B · 6B active | doesn't fit at these settings | 30.7 t/sQ5_K_S |
| Qwen3.6 35B · 3B active | doesn't fit at these settings | 21.2 t/sFP16 |
| DeepSeek V4 Flash 284B · 13B active | doesn't fit at these settings | 48.3 t/sQ2_K |
| Qwen3.6 27B | doesn't fit at these settings | 6.7 t/sFP16 |
| 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: M4 16GB · M4 Max 128GB
Every report on each card, with its source: M4 16GB · M4 Max 128GB