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All estimates are approximations based on mathematical models and public specifications. Actual performance may vary. Do not make purchasing decisions based solely on these estimates.

Data sourced from Hugging Face, Ollama, and official model documentation. Model names and logos are trademarks of their respective owners.

© 2026 Will It Run AI — Fase Consulting Ibiza, S.L. (NIF: B57969656)

Home/Hardware/Macs/MacBook Pro M4 Pro 48GB
Apple

Apple

MacBook Pro M4 Pro 48GB

M4LaptopM4UNIFIEDMetal
48GB
Unified Memory
273GB/s
Bandwidth
$2,999 MSRP

About this GPU for AI

MacBook Pro M4 Pro 48GB with 48 GB unified memory. Fourth-generation Apple Silicon with enhanced Neural Engine and improved memory bandwidth, designed for AI-first workflows including local LLM inference.

Specifications

Compute
ArchitectureM4
Memory
Unified Memory48 GB
Bandwidth273 GB/s
General
FamilyM4
SegmentLaptop
InterconnectUNIFIED
Compute PlatformMETAL
MSRP$2,999

For AI Workloads

Strengths
  • Enhanced 16-core Neural Engine for ML acceleration
  • Up to 546 GB/s memory bandwidth (Max)
  • Excellent power efficiency for sustained inference
  • Best-in-class MLX performance
  • Thunderbolt 5 for external GPU expansion
Considerations
  • Maximum 128 GB unified memory (less than some workstations)
  • No CUDA support — limited to MLX and llama.cpp Metal

Architecture

M4

Apple M4 is the latest Apple Silicon generation, using TSMC's second-generation 3nm process. It features an enhanced Neural Engine with up to 38 TOPS and higher memory bandwidth across all tiers.

AI Relevance

The M4 Max with 128 GB unified memory and up to 546 GB/s bandwidth is currently the fastest Apple Silicon option for local LLM inference. Combined with MLX framework optimizations, it delivers the best tokens-per-second of any Mac configuration.

Process: TSMC 3nm (2nd gen)Platform: METALPrecisions: FP32, FP16

M4 is Apple's most AI-capable chip yet with up to 546 GB/s bandwidth in the Max variant. The unified memory architecture means models up to ~90 GB (at 72% usable) can run natively without offloading, covering most 70B models at Q4 quantization.

Recommendations by Workload

Agentic Coding

C

Devstral Small 2 24B Instruct

This model is still usable for agentic-coding, but it is not the most specialized pick. It belongs to a current frontier family for local AI. It fits natively with comfortable headroom. Known channels: huggingface, ollama, lm-studio.

Decode 14.4 tok/s · 39K ctx · llama.cpp
28.2 GB / 48.0 GB Unified Memory

Chat

C

Qwen 3 30B A3B

This model is a direct match for chat. It belongs to a current frontier family for local AI. It fits natively with comfortable headroom. Known channels: huggingface, ollama, lm-studio.

Decode 29.2 tok/s · 11K ctx · llama.cpp
25.5 GB / 48.0 GB Unified Memory

Coding

C

Devstral Small 2 24B Instruct

This model is a direct match for coding. It belongs to a current frontier family for local AI. It fits natively with comfortable headroom. Known channels: huggingface, ollama, lm-studio.

Decode 14.4 tok/s · 23K ctx · llama.cpp
24.5 GB / 48.0 GB Unified Memory

RAG

C

Codestral 21B Pruned i1

This model is a direct match for rag. It sits in the middle of the current model mix. It fits natively with comfortable headroom.

Decode 16.4 tok/s · 43K ctx · llama.cpp
25.5 GB / 48.0 GB Unified Memory

Reasoning

C

Devstral Small 2 24B Instruct

This model is a direct match for reasoning. It belongs to a current frontier family for local AI. It fits natively with comfortable headroom. Known channels: huggingface, ollama, lm-studio.

Decode 14.4 tok/s · 23K ctx · llama.cpp
24.5 GB / 48.0 GB Unified Memory

Full Model Compatibility

AlibabaQwen3-VL 30B A3B Instruct
C54
30B25.2 GB30 tok/s22K ctx
moe
AlibabaQwen3-Coder 30B A3B Instruct
C54
30.5B25.5 GB29 tok/s22K ctx
moe
MistralDevstral Small 2 24B Instruct
C51
24B24.5 GB14 tok/s23K ctx
dense
MistralDevstral Small 1.1
C51
24B24.5 GB14 tok/s23K ctx
dense
UnslothQwen3.5 27B
C51
27B26.8 GB13 tok/s21K ctx
dense
Unslothgemma 3 27b it
C51
27B26.8 GB13 tok/s21K ctx
dense
MistralCodestral 2 25.08
C51
22B22.9 GB16 tok/s24K ctx
dense
BartowskiBLlama 3.2 3B Instruct
C48
3B9.0 GB99 tok/s61K ctx
dense
UnslothQwen3.5 4B
C48
4B9.3 GB86 tok/s59K ctx
dense
Lmstudio-communityLgemma 3 4b it
C48
4B9.3 GB86 tok/s59K ctx
dense
QwenQwen2.5 3B Instruct
C48
3B8.7 GB115 tok/s63K ctx
dense
BartowskiBgemma 2 2b it
C47
2B8.5 GB135 tok/s65K ctx
dense
UnslothQwen3.5 9B
C47
9B13.0 GB38 tok/s43K ctx
dense
HauhauCSHQwen3.5 9B Uncensored HauhauCS Aggressive
C47
9B13.0 GB38 tok/s43K ctx
dense
Lmstudio-communityLQwen3.5 9B
C47
9B13.0 GB38 tok/s43K ctx
dense
BartowskiBMeta Llama 3.1 8B Instruct
C47
8B12.2 GB43 tok/s45K ctx
dense
AlibabaQwen 2.5 Coder 32B
C47
32B30.6 GB11 tok/s18K ctx
dense
XtunerXllava llama 3 8b v1 1
C47
8B12.2 GB43 tok/s45K ctx
dense
Googlegemma 2b
C47
2B8.1 GB172 tok/s68K ctx
dense
UnslothDeepSeek R1 0528 Qwen3 8B
C47
8B12.2 GB43 tok/s45K ctx
dense
TheBlokeTLlama 2 7B Chat
C47
7B11.4 GB49 tok/s48K ctx
dense
MaziyarPanahiMMeta Llama 3 8B Instruct
C47
8B12.2 GB43 tok/s45K ctx
dense
TheBlokeTMistral 7B Instruct v0.2
C47
7B11.4 GB49 tok/s48K ctx
dense
MaziyarPanahiMMistral 7B Instruct v0.3
C47
7B11.4 GB49 tok/s48K ctx
dense
UnslothQwen3.5 35B A3B
C47
35B32.9 GB10 tok/s17K ctx
dense
TheDrummerTGemmasutra Mini 2B v1
C47
2B8.1 GB172 tok/s68K ctx
dense
QwenQwen2.5 1.5B Instruct
C47
1.5B7.8 GB210 tok/s71K ctx
dense
Lmstudio-communityLQwen3.5 35B A3B
C47
35B32.9 GB10 tok/s17K ctx
dense
Hugging-quantsHLlama 3.2 1B Instruct Q8 0
C47
1B7.7 GB221 tok/s72K ctx
dense
TheBlokeTTinyLlama 1.1B Chat v1.0
C47
1.1B7.6 GB210 tok/s73K ctx
dense
Ggml-orgGSmolVLM 500M Instruct
C47
0.5B7.3 GB221 tok/s76K ctx
dense
Ggml-orgGembeddinggemma 300M
C46
0.3B7.1 GB221 tok/s78K ctx
dense
DeepSeekDeepSeek R1 671B
F0
671B421.2 GB2 tok/s4K ctx
moe
MistralDevstral 2 123B Instruct
F0
123B100.3 GB3 tok/s6K ctx
dense
Z.aiGLM-5
F0
744B466.2 GB2 tok/s4K ctx
moe
Moonshot AIKimi K2.5
F0
1000B621.1 GB2 tok/s4K ctx
moe
MistralMistral Large 3
F0
675B424.2 GB2 tok/s4K ctx
+1moe
MistralMistral Small 4 119B
F0
119B79.7 GB8 tok/s7K ctx
moe
AlibabaQwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct
F0
480B304.4 GB2 tok/s4K ctx
moe
AlibabaQwen3-Coder-Next
F0
80B55.7 GB13 tok/s10K ctx
moe
UnslothQwen3.5 122B A10B
F0
122B84.9 GB3 tok/s7K ctx
dense
DeepSeekDeepSeek V3 671B
F0
671B421.2 GB2 tok/s4K ctx
moe
MistralMixtral 8x22B
F0
141B98.2 GB5 tok/s6K ctx
moe
AlibabaQwen 2.5 72B
F0
72B61.3 GB5 tok/s9K ctx
dense
AlibabaQwen 3 235B A22B
F0
235B152.9 GB4 tok/s4K ctx
moe
UnslothQwen3.5 397B A17B
F0
397B310.3 GB2 tok/s4K ctx
dense
MetaLlama 3.3 70B
F0
70B59.7 GB5 tok/s9K ctx
dense
MetaLlama 4 Maverick 17B 128E
F0
400B252.7 GB3 tok/s4K ctx
moe
CohereCommand A 111B
F0
111B91.1 GB3 tok/s6K ctx
dense
AlibabaQwen 2.5 VL 72B
F0
72B61.3 GB5 tok/s9K ctx
dense

Just out of reach

Models you could run with an upgrade

High-quality models that need a bit more memory

DeepSeekDeepSeek R1 671B
671BTier 5Needs ~427.0 GB
MistralDevstral 2 123B Instruct
123BTier 5Needs ~119.6 GB
Runs on Mac Studio M3 Ultra 256GB
Z.aiGLM-5
744BTier 5Needs ~472.4 GB
Moonshot AIKimi K2.5
1000BTier 5Needs ~626.1 GB
MistralMistral Large 3
675BTier 5Needs ~430.6 GB

Upgrade paths

Upgrade from MacBook Pro M4 Pro 48GB

See what you unlock with more powerful hardware

Upgrade options

Upgrade options

NVIDIANVIDIA A100 40GBNext step up
1555 GB/s (+1282)
A
Unlocks Falcon 40B Instruct+520% faster avg

~$10,000 MSRP

AppleMac Studio M1 Ultra 64GBApple upgrade
64 GB Unified (+16)800 GB/s (+527)
A
Unlocks Qwen3 48B A4B Savant Commander Distill 12X Closed Open Heretic Uncensored, Falcon 40B Instruct+108% faster avg

~$3,999 MSRP

AppleMacBook Pro M3 Max 128GBBest value
128 GB Unified (+80)400 GB/s (+127)
B
Unlocks Mistral Small 4 119B, Qwen3-Coder-Next, Qwen 2.5 72B+15 more · +8% faster avg

~$2,499 MSRP

AMDAMD Instinct MI350X 288GBBiggest leap
288 GB VRAM (+240)8000 GB/s (+7727)
A
Unlocks Devstral 2 123B Instruct, Mistral Small 4 119B, Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct+29 more · +2422% faster avg

~$8,000 MSRP

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