L40S 48GB vs MacBook Pro M3 Max 128GB for Local LLMs
The L40S 48GB has about 116% more memory bandwidth (864 vs 400 GB/s). Batch-1 decode tracks bandwidth closely, so a model that fits both cards should decode roughly 116% faster on the L40S 48GB. The MacBook Pro M3 Max 128GB fits more of the catalog at Q4/8K — 47 vs 39 of 61 models (128 vs 48 GB VRAM). Largest model that fits the MacBook Pro M3 Max 128GB but not the L40S 48GB: DeepSeek-V4-Flash (158.1B). MSRP is $8,000 for the L40S 48GB vs $4,199 for the MacBook Pro M3 Max 128GB. MSRP is a launch list price, not live retail — Amazon prices move; click through for the current price. In the Q4/8K head-to-head below (50 shared models), the L40S 48GB posts the higher tok/s in 47 rows vs 3. Methodology.