Mac mini M4 32GB vs MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB for Local LLMs

The MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB has about 355% more memory bandwidth (546 vs 120 GB/s). Batch-1 decode tracks bandwidth closely, so a model that fits both cards should decode roughly 355% faster on the MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB. The MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB fits more of the catalog at Q4/8K — 47 vs 38 of 61 models (128 vs 32 GB VRAM). Largest model that fits the MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB but not the Mac mini M4 32GB: DeepSeek-V4-Flash (158.1B). MSRP is $999 for the Mac mini M4 32GB 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 (47 shared models), the MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB posts the higher tok/s in 47 rows vs 0. Methodology.

Spec comparison

	Mac mini M4 32GB	MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB
Vendor	Apple	Apple
VRAM	32 GB	128 GB
Memory type	LPDDR5X	LPDDR5X
Memory bandwidth	120 GB/s	546 GB/s
TDP	155 W	160 W
MSRP (list)	$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 47 shared models

Model	Params (B)	Mac mini M4 32GB tok/s	Mac mini M4 32GB fits	MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB tok/s	MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB fits	Winner
Qwen3-0.6B	0.8	95.5 est.	Yes	434.3 est.	Yes	MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB
gemma-3-1b-it	1.0	76.4 est.	Yes	347.5 est.	Yes	MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB
Llama-3.2-1B-Instruct	1.2	63.6 est.	Yes	289.5 est.	Yes	MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB
Qwen3-1.7B	2.0	38.2 est.	Yes	173.7 est.	Yes	MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB
Qwen3-30B-A3B	30.5	25.5 est.	Yes	115.8 est.	Yes	MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB
Qwen3-Coder-30B-A3B-Instruct	30.5	25.5 est.	Yes	115.8 est.	Yes	MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB
GLM-4.7-Flash	31.2	25.5 est.	Yes	115.8 est.	Yes	MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB
Qwen3-30B-A3B-Instruct-2507	30.5	25.5 est.	Yes	115.8 est.	Yes	MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB
Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct	81.3	34.7 est.	No	115.8 est.	Yes	MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB
Qwen3-Coder-Next	79.7	36.1 est.	No	115.8 est.	Yes	MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB
Llama-3.2-3B-Instruct	3.2	41.3 measured	Yes	108.6 est.	Yes	MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB
gpt-oss-20b	21.5	21.2 est.	Yes	96.5 est.	Yes	MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB
Phi-4-mini-instruct	3.8	20.1 est.	Yes	91.4 est.	Yes	MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB
Phi-4-mini-reasoning	3.8	20.1 est.	Yes	91.4 est.	Yes	MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB
gemma-3-4b-it	4.3	19.6 est.	Yes	89.1 est.	Yes	MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB

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 mini M4 32GB	MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB
Catalog models that fit	38 of 61	47 of 61
Largest exclusive fit	—	DeepSeek-V4-Flash (158.1B)

Mac mini M4 32GB details → · MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB details →