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Mac Studio M5 Max (36 GB)

Apple · Verified 2026-09-21

From $2,499

Mac Studio with M5 Max, base configuration. 18-core CPU, 32-core GPU, 36GB unified memory, 460 GB/s. Start price $2,499 (U.S.) from Apple newsroom 2026-08-25. Not the 40-core/614 GB/s or 128GB CTO SKUs. Not M5 Ultra 512GB.

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Key Specifications

SpecificationValue
Form Factorcompact desktop
GPUApple M5 Max GPU (32-core)
GPU Count1
Memory Architectureunified
Memory Bandwidth (per GPU)460
Unified Memory36
System RAM36
RAM Typeunified memory
CPUApple M5 Max (18-core CPU)
CPU Cores18
Primary Storage512
Storage TypeSSD
OSmacOS
Linux SupportNo (not officially)
Windows SupportNo
CUDA SupportNo
Metal SupportYes
Release Year2026

What Models Can It Run?

Calculated estimates using weight-only memory analysis at Q4 (4-bit) quantization. Actual requirements vary by framework, context length, and runtime overhead. See methodology.

ModelParamsRequired Memory (Q4)Fits in 0GB?
Llama 3.1 8B 8B 5.52 GB ✗ No
Llama 3.1 70B 70B 37.14 GB ✗ No
Llama 3.2 1B 1B 2 GB ✗ No
Llama 3.2 3B 3B 3.01 GB ✗ No
Qwen 2.5 7B 7B 5.01 GB ✗ No
Qwen 2.5 14B 14B 8.53 GB ✗ No
Qwen 2.5 32B 32B 18.06 GB ✗ No
Qwen 2.5 72B 72B 38.14 GB ✗ No
Mistral 7B 7B 5.01 GB ✗ No
Mixtral 8x7B 46.7B 25.44 GB ✗ No
DeepSeek R1 7B 7B 5.01 GB ✗ No
DeepSeek R1 32B 32B 18.06 GB ✗ No
DeepSeek R1 70B 70B 37.14 GB ✗ No
Phi-3 Medium 14B 14B 8.53 GB ✗ No
Gemma 2 9B 9B 6.02 GB ✗ No
Gemma 2 27B 27B 15.05 GB ✗ No
Stable Diffusion XL 6.6B 4.81 GB ✗ No
Flux.1 Dev 12B 7.52 GB ✗ No
Flux.1 Schnell 12B 7.52 GB ✗ No

Max model size: No models fit (~0B params at Q4). These are calculated estimates, not measured results.

Pros & Cons

Pros

  • No significant advantages identified.

Cons

  • ✗ No CUDA — limited training ecosystem
  • ✗ No official Linux support

Compare with Other Workstations

AMD Ryzen AI Halo (AI developer platform) AMD Threadripper Halo Station Apple Mac Studio M2 Ultra (192GB) Apple Mac Studio M2 Ultra (64GB) ArsenalPC MES2X Dual RTX 5090 AI Workstation BIZON G3000 G2 (1x RTX 5090) BIZON G3000 G2 (4x RTX 5090) BOXX APEXX 8R (1x RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell)

Sources & Verification

Primary source: Apple Mac Studio Technical Specifications

https://www.apple.com/mac-studio/specs/

Verification date: 2026-09-21

Data quality: Vendor specification — from manufacturer datasheet. No hands-on testing was performed.