Mac Studio (M5 Max / M5 Ultra)

Apple’s unified memory turns the Mac Studio into the only single machine under ~$10,000 that runs 70B-class models at all. As of October 2026: M5 Max 36 GB from $2,499, M5 Ultra 96 GB from $5,499, and a 512 GB Ultra configuration coming in late October per Apple’s store page.

What it runs well:

• 70B models at Q4 (43 GB) — fits in the 96 GB M5 Ultra with room for context
• 32B models — the previous-gen M4 Max 128 GB reference config did ~33 tok/s on 32B at Q4 in one community test
• Quiet, low-power desk use — no fans spinning up, no 450 W power draw

What it does not do: 120B–200B models at Q4 need 70–120+ GB of memory — out of reach on 96 GB until the 512 GB option ships. The previous-gen M3 Ultra 256 GB ($9,299) covers that territory today, at 819 GB/s.

Trade-offs: memory bandwidth is the bottleneck (546 GB/s on the M4 Max; M5 figures were not yet published in benchmarks as of October 2026), so expect slower tokens per second than a dedicated-GPU class above it. No CUDA: vLLM and some fine-tuning stacks do not work or run slower on macOS. This is a capacity machine, not a speed machine.

Verdict: the best local option when the model is the star and speed is secondary — and the only no-cluster path to 70B under $10,000. See the ranked GPU list for how it compares with dual-GPU builds, and the VRAM calculator to size the model.