Local AI Deals

Mac Studio, M5 Max, 64GB vs Mac Studio, M3 Ultra, 96GB, refurbished

Both hold Llama-4-Scout-17B-16E at Q3_K_M. Mac Studio, M3 Ultra, 96GB, refurbished decodes an est. 49.3 tok/s against 36.9, and costs $830 more — $67.28 per extra token per second. Worth it if you read the output as it arrives; not if you queue jobs.

Fit
Tight
Fits
Headroom
3GB
32GB
Est. speed
36.9 tok/s
49.3 tok/s
Cheapest today
$3,499 at Apple
$4,329 at Apple Certified Refurbished
Per GB of memory
$55
$45
Memory
64GB unified memory
96GB unified memory
Usable for a model
59GB
88GB
Memory bandwidth
614GB/s
819GB/s
Storage
512GB
1TB
Lowest recorded
$3,499 in 3d
$4,329 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 Q3_K_M. The rows where the two boxes agree are dimmed, because they are not what you are choosing between.