MacBook Pro M1 Max 32GB vs RX 7800 XT 16GB for Local LLMs
The RX 7800 XT 16GB has about 56% more memory bandwidth (624 vs 400 GB/s). Batch-1 decode tracks bandwidth closely, so a model that fits both cards should decode roughly 56% faster on the RX 7800 XT 16GB. The MacBook Pro M1 Max 32GB fits more of the catalog at Q4/8K — 39 vs 24 of 69 models (32 vs 16 GB VRAM). Largest model that fits the MacBook Pro M1 Max 32GB but not the RX 7800 XT 16GB: Qwen3.6-35B-A3B (36.0B). MSRP is $3,299 for the MacBook Pro M1 Max 32GB vs $499 for the RX 7800 XT 16GB. 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 (44 shared models), the RX 7800 XT 16GB posts the higher tok/s in 39 rows vs 5. Methodology.