Apple M5 Ultra — Local LLM Performance & Compatibility

Written by Jakub Rusinowski · Last updated September 19, 2026

Apple's quad-die Ultra: up to 36 CPU cores, 80 GPU cores and 512 GB of unified memory at about 1.2 TB/s — the most memory bandwidth in any machine a person can buy off the shelf, and enough capacity to hold models that otherwise need a rented server.

Technical Specifications

VRAM512 GB unified memory
Memory Bandwidth1229 GB/s
TDP120 W
ArchitectureARM, 3nm TSMC
Release Year2026
MSRP at Launch$0
Inference Speed (Llama 3.1 8B Q4_K_M)59–123 tok/s (estimated)
Inference Speed (Llama 3.3 70B Q4_K_M)9.6–20 tok/s (estimated)
Buy This HardwareApple Mac Studio M3 Ultra — 512 GB VRAM · 60 W board powerDeploy in the Cloud NowRunPod

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LLMs Compatible with 512 GB Unified Memory

All models below run comfortably in 512 GB unified memory with Q4_K_M quantization.

DeepSeek V3DeepSeek V3 (685B MoE) · 414 GB VRAM · Q4_K_M · ollama run deepseek-v3
DeepSeek R1DeepSeek R1 (671B) · 406 GB VRAM · Q4_K_M · ollama run deepseek-r1:671b
Qwen3-CoderQwen3-Coder 480B-A35B (MoE) · 291 GB VRAM · Q4_K_M · ollama run qwen3-coder:480b-a35b
MiniMax M3MiniMax M3 428B-A23B · 259 GB VRAM · Q4_K_M · minimax-m3
Llama 4Llama 4 Maverick 17B · 242 GB VRAM · Q4_K_M · ollama run llama4:maverick
Qwen 3.5Qwen 3.5 397B-A17B · 240 GB VRAM · Q4_K_M · qwen3-5
Nex-N2Nex-N2 Pro · 240 GB VRAM · Q4_K_M · nex-n2
GLM-5.3-FlashGLM-5.3-Flash 320B-A18B · 194 GB VRAM · Q4_K_M · glm-5-3-flash

75 more families also fit 512 GB — browse the full model library.

Best Use Cases

FAQ

Can the Apple M5 Ultra run local LLMs?

Yes — the Apple M5 Ultra has 512 GB unified memory and runs Apple's quad-die Ultra: up to 36 CPU cores, 80 GPU cores and 512 GB of unified memory at about 1.2 TB/s — the most memor

How fast is the Apple M5 Ultra for AI inference?

The Apple M5 Ultra is estimated to run Llama 3.1 8B at 59–123 tok/s with Q4_K_M quantization. For Llama 3.3 70B the estimate is 9.6–20 tok/s. These are modelled estimates, not measurements — see /en/methodology.

What LLMs can I run on 512 GB VRAM?

With 512 GB you can run: DeepSeek V3, DeepSeek R1, Qwen3-Coder, MiniMax M3, Llama 4. Use Ollama for the easiest setup: ollama run llama3.1:8b.

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