MacBook Pro M3 Max 128GB vs Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB for Local LLMs

The Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB has about 105% more memory bandwidth (819 vs 400 GB/s). Batch-1 decode tracks bandwidth closely, so a model that fits both cards should decode roughly 105% faster on the Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB. Both fit the same number of catalog models at Q4/8K (47 of 61; 128 vs 96 GB VRAM). MSRP is $4,199 for the MacBook Pro M3 Max 128GB vs $3,999 for the Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB. 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 (54 shared models), the Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB posts the higher tok/s in 54 rows vs 0. Methodology.

Spec comparison

	MacBook Pro M3 Max 128GB	Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB
Vendor	Apple	Apple
VRAM	128 GB	96 GB
Memory type	LPDDR5	LPDDR5
Memory bandwidth	400 GB/s	819 GB/s
TDP	140 W	480 W
MSRP (list)	$4,199	$3,999
Buy	Search 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 54 shared models

Model	Params (B)	MacBook Pro M3 Max 128GB tok/s	MacBook Pro M3 Max 128GB fits	Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB tok/s	Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB fits	Winner
Qwen3-0.6B	0.8	318.2 est.	Yes	651.5 est.	Yes	Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB
gemma-3-1b-it	1.0	254.5 est.	Yes	521.2 est.	Yes	Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB
Llama-3.2-1B-Instruct	1.2	212.1 est.	Yes	434.3 est.	Yes	Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB
Qwen3-1.7B	2.0	127.3 est.	Yes	260.6 est.	Yes	Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB
Qwen3-30B-A3B	30.5	84.8 est.	Yes	173.7 est.	Yes	Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB
Qwen3-Coder-30B-A3B-Instruct	30.5	84.8 est.	Yes	173.7 est.	Yes	Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB
GLM-4.7-Flash	31.2	84.8 est.	Yes	173.7 est.	Yes	Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB
Qwen3-30B-A3B-Instruct-2507	30.5	84.8 est.	Yes	173.7 est.	Yes	Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB
Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct	81.3	84.8 est.	Yes	173.7 est.	Yes	Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB
Qwen3-Coder-Next	79.7	84.8 est.	Yes	173.7 est.	Yes	Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB
Llama-3.2-3B-Instruct	3.2	79.5 est.	Yes	154.6 measured	Yes	Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB
Phi-4-mini-instruct	3.8	67.0 est.	Yes	137.2 est.	Yes	Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB
Phi-4-mini-reasoning	3.8	67.0 est.	Yes	137.2 est.	Yes	Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB
gemma-3-4b-it	4.3	65.3 est.	Yes	133.6 est.	Yes	Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB
Qwen3-4B-Instruct-2507	4.0	63.6 est.	Yes	130.3 est.	Yes	Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB

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

	MacBook Pro M3 Max 128GB	Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB
Catalog models that fit	47 of 61	47 of 61
Largest exclusive fit	—	—

MacBook Pro M3 Max 128GB details → · Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB details →