What is the best local model for coding on the Apple M5 Max?

On the Apple M5 Max, unsloth/Qwen3.8-27B-GGUF:UD-Q6_K_XL ranks first for coding in our benchmarks (85.4/100 at ~25.2 tok/s). Ornith-1.5-35B-A3B-oQ4e-mtp is faster (~111.8 tok/s) and still scores well (81.8/100) — a good pick if you'd rather trade a little quality for speed.

What is the best local model for agentic workflows on the Apple M5 Max?

On the Apple M5 Max, Qwen3.8-27B-AWQ-4.85bpw ranks first for agentic workflows in our benchmarks (91.5/100 at ~31.8 tok/s). Tiel-Coder-35B-A3B-MLX-oQ4e-MTP is faster (~123.6 tok/s) and still scores well (84.0/100) — a good pick if you'd rather trade a little quality for speed.

Hardware Benchmarks

Best Local LLM Performance for Apple M5 Max

Name: Apple M5 Max
Brand: Apple

Compare Apple M5 Max benchmark results and see which models actually earn the best completed quality scores.

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Hardware Overview

GPU-specific specifications for local LLM planning.

Apple M5 Max

VRAM: 128GB

Recommended Models

Models we recommend for Apple M5 Max.

Fastest

LFM2.5-8B-A1B-MLX-8bit

197.3 tok/s

Highest token generation speed at 197.3 tok/s.

Best quality

Qwen3.8-27B-oQ4e-fp16-mtp

27B

47.1 tok/sQuality 90.6

Highest completed quality score at 90.6.

Largest context

Qwen3.8-27B-oQ8e-mtp

27B

32.4 tok/sContext 262,144 tokens

Largest context that fits in 128GB VRAM, at 262,144 tokens.

Frequently asked questions

Which models actually run best on the Apple M5 Max, by task, from community benchmark data.

What is the best local model for coding on the Apple M5 Max?: On the Apple M5 Max, unsloth/Qwen3.8-27B-GGUF:UD-Q6_K_XL ranks first for coding in our benchmarks (85.4/100 at ~25.2 tok/s). Ornith-1.5-35B-A3B-oQ4e-mtp is faster (~111.8 tok/s) and still scores well (81.8/100) — a good pick if you'd rather trade a little quality for speed.
What is the best local model for agentic workflows on the Apple M5 Max?: On the Apple M5 Max, Qwen3.8-27B-AWQ-4.85bpw ranks first for agentic workflows in our benchmarks (91.5/100 at ~31.8 tok/s). Tiel-Coder-35B-A3B-MLX-oQ4e-MTP is faster (~123.6 tok/s) and still scores well (84.0/100) — a good pick if you'd rather trade a little quality for speed.

Benchmark Results

Completed quality-ranked benchmark results for Apple M5 Max.