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Mac Studio M2 Ultra 192GB vs RTX 5090 32GB for Local LLMs

The RTX 5090 32GB has about 124% more memory bandwidth (1,792 vs 800 GB/s). Batch-1 decode tracks bandwidth closely, so a model that fits both cards should decode roughly 124% faster on the RTX 5090 32GB. The Mac Studio M2 Ultra 192GB fits more of the catalog at Q4/8K — 50 vs 38 of 61 models (192 vs 32 GB VRAM). Largest model that fits the Mac Studio M2 Ultra 192GB but not the RTX 5090 32GB: Qwen3-235B-A22B (235.1B). MSRP is $6,999 for the Mac Studio M2 Ultra 192GB vs $1,999 for the RTX 5090 32GB. 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 (47 shared models), the RTX 5090 32GB posts the higher tok/s in 45 rows vs 2. Methodology.

Spec comparison

Mac Studio M2 Ultra 192GBRTX 5090 32GB
VendorAppleNVIDIA
VRAM192 GB32 GB
Memory typeLPDDR5GDDR7
Memory bandwidth800 GB/s1,792 GB/s
TDP370 W575 W
MSRP (list)$6,999$1,999
BuySearch Amazon (affiliate)Search Amazon (affiliate)

MSRP is the launch list price, not live retail. Buy links are Amazon affiliate links — the price after you click is the live price.

Q4 / 8K head-to-head — top 15 of 47 shared models

ModelParams (B)Mac Studio M2 Ultra 192GB tok/sMac Studio M2 Ultra 192GB fitsRTX 5090 32GB tok/sRTX 5090 32GB fitsWinner
Qwen3-0.6B0.8636.4 est.Yes1425.5 est.YesRTX 5090 32GB
gemma-3-1b-it1.0509.1 est.Yes1140.4 est.YesRTX 5090 32GB
Llama-3.2-1B-Instruct1.2424.2 est.Yes950.3 est.YesRTX 5090 32GB
Qwen3-1.7B2.0254.5 est.Yes570.2 est.YesRTX 5090 32GB
Qwen3-Coder-Next79.7169.7 est.Yes538.6 est.NoRTX 5090 32GB
Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct81.3169.7 est.Yes518.3 est.NoRTX 5090 32GB
Qwen3-30B-A3B30.5169.7 est.Yes380.1 est.YesRTX 5090 32GB
Qwen3-Coder-30B-A3B-Instruct30.5169.7 est.Yes380.1 est.YesRTX 5090 32GB
GLM-4.7-Flash31.2169.7 est.Yes380.1 est.YesRTX 5090 32GB
Qwen3-30B-A3B-Instruct-250730.5169.7 est.Yes380.1 est.YesRTX 5090 32GB
Llama-3.2-3B-Instruct3.2159.1 est.Yes356.4 est.YesRTX 5090 32GB
Phi-4-mini-instruct3.8134.0 est.Yes300.1 est.YesRTX 5090 32GB
Phi-4-mini-reasoning3.8134.0 est.Yes300.1 est.YesRTX 5090 32GB
gemma-3-4b-it4.3130.5 est.Yes292.4 est.YesRTX 5090 32GB
Qwen3-4B-Instruct-25074.0127.3 est.Yes285.1 est.YesRTX 5090 32GB

est. = bandwidth-based estimate; measured = curated real benchmark that overrides the estimate. Fits = weights + KV(8K) + 1 GB overhead ≤ 95% of VRAM.

Fit coverage at Q4 / 8K

Mac Studio M2 Ultra 192GBRTX 5090 32GB
Catalog models that fit50 of 6138 of 61
Largest exclusive fitQwen3-235B-A22B (235.1B)—

Mac Studio M2 Ultra 192GB details → · RTX 5090 32GB details →