Local AI Deals

Mac mini, M5 Pro, 64GB vs Mac Studio, M4 Max, 64GB, refurbished

Both hold Gemma-3-27B at Q6_K. Mac Studio, M4 Max, 64GB, refurbished decodes an est. 16.0 tok/s against 9.0, and costs $150 more — $21.38 per extra token per second. Worth it if you read the output as it arrives; not if you queue jobs.

Fit
Fits
Fits
Headroom
34GB
34GB
Est. speed
9.0 tok/s
16.0 tok/s
Cheapest today
$2,899 at Apple
$3,049 at Apple Certified Refurbished
Per GB of memory
$45
$48
Memory
64GB unified memory
64GB unified memory
Usable for a model
59GB
59GB
Memory bandwidth
307GB/s
546GB/s
Storage
512GB
1TB
Lowest recorded
$2,699 in 3d
$3,049 in 3d

Fit, headroom and speed are computed from each vendor’s published bandwidth and the model’s own size at 8K context. Prices are the cheapest listing we could read on each seller’s page. The arithmetic is here.

Where they actually differ

Every model we track at Q6_K. The rows where the two boxes agree are dimmed, because they are not what you are choosing between.