Local AI Deals

Mac Studio, M5 Max, 64GB vs Mac Studio, M4 Max, 128GB, refurbished

Both hold Gemma-3-27B at Q8_0, and Mac Studio, M4 Max, 128GB, refurbished is not meaningfully faster — an est. 12.4 tok/s against 13.9. Buy Mac Studio, M5 Max, 64GB and keep the $910.

Fit
Fits
Fits
Headroom
27GB
88GB
Est. speed
13.9 tok/s
12.4 tok/s
Cheapest today
$3,499 at Apple
$4,409 at Apple Certified Refurbished
Per GB of memory
$55
$34
Memory
64GB unified memory
128GB unified memory
Usable for a model
59GB
120GB
Memory bandwidth
614GB/s
546GB/s
Storage
512GB
1TB
Lowest recorded
$3,499 in 3d
$4,409 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 Q8_0. The rows where the two boxes agree are dimmed, because they are not what you are choosing between.