Apple Mac Studio (M4 Max)

The Mac Studio M4 Max is the quiet surprise of local AI: a small, near-silent desktop that happens to have the fastest memory of any machine near this price. Load it with 128GB and it’ll run big models quicker than the PC-based unified-memory boxes, provided you’re happy living in macOS to do it.

The take

Of the three unified-memory machines worth considering, this is the fast one. The M4 Max moves memory at up to 546 GB/s on the full chip, roughly double what the DGX Spark or the Framework Desktop manage, and bandwidth is exactly what decides tokens per second once a model fits. So on any model that lives in both machines’ memory, the Mac answers noticeably quicker. Pair that with Apple’s MLX tooling, which is pleasant to use, and it’s a lovely local-AI box. The trade is plain: it’s macOS only, there’s no Nvidia CUDA, and Apple’s memory upgrades are famously not cheap.

What it’ll actually run

Kit it out with 128GB and the same big models come into range: a 70B at Q4 fits easily, with headroom for a healthy context, and you can push into larger models than any 24GB card allows. Nothing new there against its rivals - the capacity is similar.

What’s different is the pace. Thanks to that 546 GB/s of bandwidth on the full M4 Max, a 70B at Q4 runs appreciably faster here than on the 256-to-273 GB/s PC boxes - think low-to-mid double figures of tokens per second where they’d be stuck in single figures. Drop to a 30B or an 8B and it’s properly snappy. One thing to watch at the till: the binned M4 Max runs at 410 GB/s, the full chip at 546 GB/s, so pick the 40-core GPU option if bandwidth is why you’re here. On software, MLX and llama.cpp both run well on Apple silicon, and the machine idles cool and silent. It will spin its fan up and get warm under a long, sustained prompt - owners report it becoming clearly audible then - but for an always-on assistant ticking over, it’s usually the quietest thing on the desk.

Who should buy it

Buy it if you want the fastest tokens per second of the unified-memory machines and you’re already comfortable on a Mac. For someone who lives in macOS, wants a silent desktop, and fancies playing with MLX, it’s hard to beat - and it doubles as a properly capable workstation for everything else.

Steer clear if you need CUDA, or if value per pound is the deciding factor. Nvidia’s software still rules a lot of the AI world, and none of it runs here. A used 3090 is far cheaper for models that fit in 24GB, and the Framework Desktop loads the same big models for less if raw speed isn’t the point. But if you want big models answering quickly, quietly, and you don’t mind the Apple tax, the Mac Studio is the pick.