Local AI Deals

Mac Studio, M5 Max, 36GB vs Mac Studio, M5 Max, 48GB

Only Mac Studio, M5 Max, 48GB holds Qwen3-32B at Q8_0. Mac Studio, M5 Max, 36GB is 4GB short. It costs $600 more, and a box that cannot load the model is not a saving.

For Qwen3-32B at Q8_0Mac Studio 36GBMac Studio 48GB
Fit
Won't fit
Fits
Headroom
4GB
7GB
Est. speed
11.7 tok/s
Cheapest today
$2,499 at Apple
$3,099 at Apple
Per GB of memory
$69
$65
Memory
36GB unified memory
48GB unified memory
Usable for a model
33GB
44GB
Memory bandwidth
614GB/s
614GB/s
Storage
512GB
512GB
Lowest recorded
$2,499 in 2d
$3,099 in 2d

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 Q8_0. The rows where the two boxes agree are dimmed, because they are not what you are choosing between.