Local AI Deals

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

Both hold Gemma-3-27B at Q3_K_M. Mac Studio, M5 Ultra, 96GB decodes an est. 59.1 tok/s against 30.2, and costs $2,000 more — $69.29 per extra token per second. Worth it if you read the output as it arrives; not if you queue jobs.

Fit
Fits
Fits
Headroom
42GB
72GB
Est. speed
30.2 tok/s
59.1 tok/s
Cheapest today
$3,499 at Apple
$5,499 at Best Buy
Per GB of memory
$55
$57
Memory
64GB unified memory
96GB unified memory
Usable for a model
59GB
88GB
Memory bandwidth
614GB/s
1.2TB/s
Storage
512GB
1TB
Lowest recorded
$3,499 in 3d
$5,499 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.