MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB vs RTX 4070 Super 12GB for Local LLMs

The MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB has about 8% more memory bandwidth (546 vs 504 GB/s). Batch-1 decode tracks bandwidth closely, so a model that fits both cards should decode roughly 8% faster on the MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB. The MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB fits more of the catalog at Q4/8K — 47 vs 18 of 61 models (128 vs 12 GB VRAM). Largest model that fits the MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB but not the RTX 4070 Super 12GB: DeepSeek-V4-Flash (158.1B). MSRP is $4,399 for the MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB vs $599 for the RTX 4070 Super 12GB. 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 (40 shared models), the MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB posts the higher tok/s in 26 rows vs 14. Methodology.

Spec comparison

	MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB	RTX 4070 Super 12GB
Vendor	Apple	NVIDIA
VRAM	128 GB	12 GB
Memory type	LPDDR5X	GDDR6X
Memory bandwidth	546 GB/s	504 GB/s
TDP	160 W	220 W
MSRP (list)	$4,399	$599
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 40 shared models

Model	Params (B)	MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB tok/s	MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB fits	RTX 4070 Super 12GB tok/s	RTX 4070 Super 12GB fits	Winner
Qwen3-0.6B	0.8	434.3 est.	Yes	400.9 est.	Yes	MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB
gemma-3-1b-it	1.0	347.5 est.	Yes	320.7 est.	Yes	MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB
Llama-3.2-1B-Instruct	1.2	289.5 est.	Yes	267.3 est.	Yes	MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB
gpt-oss-20b	21.5	96.5 est.	Yes	199.6 est.	No	RTX 4070 Super 12GB
Qwen3-1.7B	2.0	173.7 est.	Yes	160.4 est.	Yes	MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB
Qwen3-30B-A3B	30.5	115.8 est.	Yes	130.2 est.	No	RTX 4070 Super 12GB
Qwen3-Coder-30B-A3B-Instruct	30.5	115.8 est.	Yes	130.2 est.	No	RTX 4070 Super 12GB
Qwen3-30B-A3B-Instruct-2507	30.5	115.8 est.	Yes	130.2 est.	No	RTX 4070 Super 12GB
GLM-4.7-Flash	31.2	115.8 est.	Yes	125.0 est.	No	RTX 4070 Super 12GB
Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct	81.3	115.8 est.	Yes	20.5 est.	No	MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB
Qwen3-Coder-Next	79.7	115.8 est.	Yes	21.3 est.	No	MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB
Llama-3.2-3B-Instruct	3.2	108.6 est.	Yes	100.2 est.	Yes	MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB
Phi-4-mini-instruct	3.8	91.4 est.	Yes	84.4 est.	Yes	MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB
Phi-4-mini-reasoning	3.8	91.4 est.	Yes	84.4 est.	Yes	MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB
gemma-3-4b-it	4.3	89.1 est.	Yes	82.2 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

	MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB	RTX 4070 Super 12GB
Catalog models that fit	47 of 61	18 of 61
Largest exclusive fit	DeepSeek-V4-Flash (158.1B)	—

MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB details → · RTX 4070 Super 12GB details →