ASUS NUC 14 Pro+ (Core Ultra 7 258V) vs Mac mini M4 Max (128GB) for Local AI: Local AI Performance
Side-by-side specification comparison with AI model-fit analysis. Data sourced from manufacturer specs, verified 2026-07-21.
|
ASUS NUC 14 Pro+ (Core Ultra 7 258V) ASUS |
Mac mini M4 Max (128GB) Apple |
|
|---|---|---|
| Price | $949MSRP | $3,199MSRP |
| AI Framework | OpenVINO, DirectML, IPEX | MLX, CoreML, llama.cpp |
| CPU Cores | 8 | 16 |
| Ethernet | 2.5GbE | 10GbE (optional) |
| GPU Compute Units | 8 | 40 |
| GPU | Intel Arc | Apple M4 Max GPU |
| Memory Bandwidth (GB/s) | 136.5 | 546 |
| Memory Bus Width | 128-bit | 256-bit |
| Memory (GB) | 32 | 128 |
| Memory Type | LPDDR5X 8533 | Unified LPDDR5X |
| Memory Upgradeable | No (soldered LPDDR5X) | No (unified memory) |
| NPU TOPS | 47 | 38 |
| OCuLink / PCIe | No | No |
| OS Support | Windows 11, Linux | macOS |
| Platform | Intel Lunar Lake | Apple M4 Max |
| Storage Type | NVMe Gen4 SSD | NVMe SSD |
| TDP (W) | 30 | 80 |
| Buy | Check Price → | Check Price → |
| Details | View → | View → |
Model Fit Analysis
ASUS NUC 14 Pro+ (Core Ultra 7 258V)
Max Q4: 14B class models (21B params)
Usable AI memory: 14GB · Method: intel_igpu_bios_limited Conservative
Llama 3.1 8B
✓
Llama 3.1 70B
✗
Llama 3.2 1B
✓
Llama 3.2 3B
✓
Qwen 2.5 7B
✓
Qwen 2.5 14B
✓
Qwen 2.5 32B
✗
Qwen 2.5 72B
✗
Mistral 7B
✓
Mixtral 8x7B
✗
DeepSeek R1 7B
✓
DeepSeek R1 32B
✗
DeepSeek R1 70B
✗
Phi-3 Medium 14B
✓
Gemma 2 9B
✓
Gemma 2 27B
✗
Stable Diffusion XL
✓
Flux.1 Dev
✓
Flux.1 Schnell
✓
Mac mini M4 Max (128GB)
Max Q4: 70B class models (168B params)
Usable AI memory: 87.5GB · Method: unified_memory_desktop_workload Conservative
Llama 3.1 8B
✓
Llama 3.1 70B
✓
Llama 3.2 1B
✓
Llama 3.2 3B
✓
Qwen 2.5 7B
✓
Qwen 2.5 14B
✓
Qwen 2.5 32B
✓
Qwen 2.5 72B
✓
Mistral 7B
✓
Mixtral 8x7B
✓
DeepSeek R1 7B
✓
DeepSeek R1 32B
✓
DeepSeek R1 70B
✓
Phi-3 Medium 14B
✓
Gemma 2 9B
✓
Gemma 2 27B
✓
Stable Diffusion XL
✓
Flux.1 Dev
✓
Flux.1 Schnell
✓
Specifications sourced from manufacturer datasheets. Prices are MSRP, verified 2026-07-21. Model-fit uses conservative estimates — actual performance varies. Methodology