M5 Max 48GB vs M6 32GB for local LLMs
67 reports on the M5 Max 48GB and 22 on the M6 32GB
Which is faster for local LLMs?
On Qwen3.6 35B · 3B active at 4-bit, the M5 Max 48GB has 137.7 generation tokens/s (2 runs); prompt processing 3338.1 tokens/s (2 runs); the M6 32GB has 63.8 generation 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 3.6x higher on the M5 Max 48GB (614 GB/s on the M5 Max 48GB, 171 on the M6 32GB). Across 4 shared models with generation measurements on both cards, the M5 Max 48GB's median is higher on 4 and the M6 32GB's on 0.
- Memory
- 48GB unified
- Memory bandwidth
- 614 GB/s
- FP16 compute
- not on record
- Reports
- 67
- 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 48GB | M6 32GB |
|---|---|---|
| Qwen3.6 35B · 3B active4-bit | 137.72 runsPP 3338.1 (2 runs)llama.cpp, MLXcontext not stated | 63.8one runLM Studio32K context |
| Gemma 3 27B4-bit | 29.9one runPP 751.0 (one run)llama.cppcontext not stated | 8.9one runPP 11.2 (one run)engine not statedcontext not stated |
| Gemma 4 26B · 4B active4-bit | 116.9one runPP 3423.2 (one run)llama.cppcontext not stated | 52.2one runengine not statedcontext not stated |
| Qwen3.5 4B4-bit | 135.6one runPP 4099.7 (one run)llama.cppcontext 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 48GB | M6 32GB |
|---|---|---|
| Qwen3.6 35B · 3B active | 88.4 t/sQ5_K_M | 38.2 t/sQ3_K_M |
| Gemma 3 27B | 22.3 t/sQ6_K | 12.0 t/sQ3_K_M |
| Gemma 4 26B · 4B active | 43.2 t/sQ8_0 | 23.2 t/sQ4_K_M |
| Qwen3.5 4B | 61.0 t/sFP16 | 17.7 t/sFP16 |
| Qwen3.8 27B | 22.3 t/sQ6_K | 10.5 t/sQ4_K_S |
| 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 | 22.3 t/sQ6_K | 10.5 t/sQ4_K_S |
| 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 | doesn't fit at these settings | doesn't fit at these settings |
Change the context, RAM or model in the calculator: M5 Max 48GB · M6 32GB
Every report on each card, with its source: M5 Max 48GB · M6 32GB