M5 Max 36GB vs M6 32GB for local LLMs
13 reports on the M5 Max 36GB and 22 on the M6 32GB
Which is faster for local LLMs?
On Qwen3.5 4B at 4-bit, the M5 Max 36GB has 133.0 generation tokens/s (one run); the M6 32GB has 16.2 generation tokens/s (one run); prompt processing 439.0 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 2.7x higher on the M5 Max 36GB (461 GB/s on the M5 Max 36GB, 171 on the M6 32GB).
- Memory
- 36GB unified
- Memory bandwidth
- 461 GB/s
- FP16 compute
- not on record
- Reports
- 13
- Memory
- 32GB unified
- Memory bandwidth
- 171 GB/s
- FP16 compute
- not on record
- Reports
- 22
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 | M5 Max 36GB | M6 32GB |
|---|---|---|
| Qwen3.5 4B4-bit | 133.0one runengine not statedcontext not stated | 16.2one runPP 439.0 (one run)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 | M5 Max 36GB | M6 32GB |
|---|---|---|
| Qwen3.5 4B | 45.8 t/sFP16 | 17.7 t/sFP16 |
| Qwen3.8 27B | 19.7 t/sQ5_K_M | 10.5 t/sQ4_K_S |
| Qwen3.8 125B · 6B active | doesn't fit at these settings | doesn't fit at these settings |
| Qwen3.6 35B · 3B active | 75.9 t/sQ4_K_M | 38.2 t/sQ3_K_M |
| DeepSeek V4 Flash 284B · 13B active | doesn't fit at these settings | doesn't fit at these settings |
| Qwen3.6 27B | 19.7 t/sQ5_K_M | 10.5 t/sQ4_K_S |
| Gemma 4 26B · 4B active | 50.2 t/sQ5_K_M | 23.2 t/sQ4_K_M |
Change the context, RAM or model in the calculator: M5 Max 36GB · M6 32GB
Every report on each card, with its source: M5 Max 36GB · M6 32GB