Apple M2 Max: 96 GB, what it runs and what it costs
Specs checked · Aliteq Team · How we compute this
The short answer
The Apple M2 Max has 96 GB of VRAM and 409.6 GB/s of memory bandwidth (2023). At Q4_K_M quality or better with an 8K context it runs 40 of the open models we track; the largest that fits with room to spare is Qwen3.5 122B-A10B (MoE). We don't see it for rent on the providers we track right now.
- VRAM
- 96 GB
- Bandwidth
- 409.6 GB/s
- Board power
- —
- Launched
- 2023
Source: Apple specification · bandwidth not yet confirmed by a second source, so we don't estimate speed from it
Buy it or rent it
Not for rent on the providers we track right now. See every card that is.
Which AI models run on the Apple M2 Max
Computed by our VRAM engine for an 8K context: the best quality each model fits at in 96 GB. Speeds are upper-bound estimates from memory bandwidth, not benchmarks.
| Model | Best fit | VRAM used | ~tok/s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Qwen3.5 122B-A10B (MoE) | Q5_K_M | 84 GB87% | — |
| NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super 120B-A12B (MoE) | Q6_K | 95 GB99% · tight | — |
| gpt-oss 120B (MoE) | Q6_K | 91 GB94% · tight | — |
| Llama 4 Scout 17B-16E (MoE) | Q6_K | 84 GB88% | — |
| GLM-4.5-Air (MoE) | Q6_K | 83 GB87% | — |
| Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B (MoE) | Q8_0 | 80 GB83% | — |
| Qwen3-Coder-Next 80B-A3B (MoE) | Q8_0 | 80 GB83% | — |
| DeepSeek R1 Distill 70B | Q8_0 | 73 GB76% | — |
| Mixtral 8x7B (MoE) | F16 | 89 GB92% · tight | — |
| Qwen3.6 35B-A3B (MoE) | F16 | 68 GB71% | — |
| Ornith-1.5 35B-A3B (MoE) | F16 | 68 GB71% | — |
| Qwen3.5 35B-A3B (MoE) | F16 | 68 GB71% | — |
Fits only below Q4 quality: Qwen3 235B-A22B (MoE) (Q2_K), MiniMax-M2.5 (MoE) (Q2_K), Qwen3.8-Flash-Next (MoE) (IQ4_XS).
Too big for 96 GB (rent a bigger card instead): what it costs to run MiniMax-M3 (MoE), what it costs to run GLM-5.3 (MoE), what it costs to run DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (MoE), what it costs to run DeepSeek V4 Pro (MoE).
Check a model and context of your own in the VRAM calculator.
Cards to compare it with
- RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Max-Q Workstation Edition · 96 GB
- RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Workstation Edition · 96 GB
- Apple M4 Max (16-core CPU / 40-core GPU) · 128 GB
- DGX Spark (GB10 Grace Blackwell) · 128 GB
- Apple M4 Pro · 64 GB
- AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 (Strix Halo,) · 128 GB
Every card by VRAM tier: all GPUs for gaming and local AI.