Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB vs MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB for Local LLMs

The Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB has about 50% more memory bandwidth (819 vs 546 GB/s). Batch-1 decode tracks bandwidth closely, so a model that fits both cards should decode roughly 50% faster on the Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB. Both fit the same number of catalog models at Q4/8K (47 of 61; 96 vs 128 GB VRAM). MSRP is $3,999 for the Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB vs $4,399 for the MacBook Pro M4 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 (54 shared models), the Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB posts the higher tok/s in 45 rows vs 8. Methodology.

Spec comparison

	Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB	MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB
Vendor	Apple	Apple
VRAM	96 GB	128 GB
Memory type	LPDDR5	LPDDR5X
Memory bandwidth	819 GB/s	546 GB/s
TDP	480 W	160 W
MSRP (list)	$3,999	$4,399
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)	Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB tok/s	Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB fits	MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB tok/s	MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB fits	Winner
Qwen3-0.6B	0.8	651.5 est.	Yes	434.3 est.	Yes	Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB
gemma-3-1b-it	1.0	521.2 est.	Yes	347.5 est.	Yes	Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB
Llama-3.2-1B-Instruct	1.2	434.3 est.	Yes	289.5 est.	Yes	Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB
Qwen3-1.7B	2.0	260.6 est.	Yes	173.7 est.	Yes	Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB
Qwen3-30B-A3B	30.5	173.7 est.	Yes	115.8 est.	Yes	Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB
Qwen3-Coder-30B-A3B-Instruct	30.5	173.7 est.	Yes	115.8 est.	Yes	Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB
GLM-4.7-Flash	31.2	173.7 est.	Yes	115.8 est.	Yes	Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB
Qwen3-30B-A3B-Instruct-2507	30.5	173.7 est.	Yes	115.8 est.	Yes	Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB
Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct	81.3	173.7 est.	Yes	115.8 est.	Yes	Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB
Qwen3-Coder-Next	79.7	173.7 est.	Yes	115.8 est.	Yes	Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB
Llama-3.2-3B-Instruct	3.2	154.6 measured	Yes	108.6 est.	Yes	Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB
Phi-4-mini-instruct	3.8	137.2 est.	Yes	91.4 est.	Yes	Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB
Phi-4-mini-reasoning	3.8	137.2 est.	Yes	91.4 est.	Yes	Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB
gemma-3-4b-it	4.3	133.6 est.	Yes	89.1 est.	Yes	Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB
Qwen3-4B-Instruct-2507	4.0	130.3 est.	Yes	86.9 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

	Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB	MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB
Catalog models that fit	47 of 61	47 of 61
Largest exclusive fit	—	—

Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB details → · MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB details →