M5

Name: M5
Brand: Apple

Apple M5: 16–32 GB of memory at 153 GB/s. Below: the open models it can run, estimated at 32 GB with an 8K context. The base M5 with 16–32 GB at 153 GB/s: fine for 8–14B models; 32 GB holds larger ones, but they run slowly.

Last updated: 2026-10-14

Specifications

Memory	16–32 GB LPDDR5X[src]
Memory bandwidth	153 GB/s[src]
Launch	2025-10[src]
Launch price	US$1,599[src]
Architecture	Apple M5 family (third-generation 3 nm; TSMC N3P)[src]
Software	Metal / MLX

What it can run

Best-quality quantization that fits with a 8K context, and the estimated generation speed. Estimates, not benchmarks. See the methodology.

Memory configuration

Model	Params	Best quant	Memory	tok/s (est.)
Qwen3.5-35B-A3B	35B (3B)	Q4_K_M	21.4 GiB	55
Qwen3.6-35B-A3B	35B (3B)	Q4_K_M	21.4 GiB	55
Qwen3-32B	32.8B	Q4_K_M	21.9 GiB	5.0
DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-32B	32.76B	Q4_K_M	21.9 GiB	5.0
Gemma 4 31B IT	30.7B	Q5_K_M	22.9 GiB	4.6
Qwen3-30B-A3B (2507)	30.5B (3.3B)	Q5_K_M	22.5 GiB	42
Qwen3-Coder-30B-A3B-Instruct	30.5B (3.3B)	Q5_K_M	22.5 GiB	42
GLM-4.7-Flash (30B-A3B)	30B (3B)	Q5_K_M	21.8 GiB	47
Qwen3.5-27B	27B	Q6_K	22.7 GiB	4.5
Qwen3.6-27B	27B	Q6_K	22.7 GiB	4.5
Qwen3.8-27B	27B	Q6_K	22.7 GiB	4.5
Gemma 3 27B IT	27B	Q6_K	23.3 GiB	4.5
Gemma 4 26B A4B IT	25.2B (3.8B)	Q6_K	21.1 GiB	32
Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct (2506)	24B	Q6_K	21.1 GiB	5.0
Magistral Small 1.2 (2509)	24B	Q6_K	21.1 GiB	5.0
Devstral Small 2 24B Instruct (2512)	24B	Q6_K	21.1 GiB	5.0
gpt-oss-20b	21B (3.6B)	Q8_0	22.5 GiB	26
Phi-4 (14B)	14B	Q8_0	16.6 GiB	6.7
Gemma 3 12B IT	12B	Q8_0	13.8 GiB	7.8
Gemma 4 12B Unified IT	11.95B	Q8_0	13.3 GiB	7.8
Qwen3.5-9B	9B	FP16	18.4 GiB	5.5
Qwen3-8B	8.2B	FP16	17.7 GiB	6.1
DeepSeek-R1-0528-Qwen3-8B	8.19B	FP16	17.6 GiB	6.1
Llama 3.1 8B Instruct	8B	FP16	17.1 GiB	6.2
Gemma 4 E4B IT	8B	FP16	16.4 GiB	6.2
Llama 3.2 3B Instruct	3.21B	FP16	7.7 GiB	15
Kimi K2.6	1000B (32B)	Doesn't fit	–	–
DeepSeek-R1-0528 (671B)	671B (37B)	Doesn't fit	–	–
DeepSeek-V4-Flash	284B (13B)	Doesn't fit	–	–
Qwen3.8-Flash-Next	180B (6B)	Doesn't fit	–	–
Qwen3.5-122B-A10B	122B (10B)	Doesn't fit	–	–
Mistral Small 4 119B (2603)	119B (6.5B)	Doesn't fit	–	–
gpt-oss-120b	117B (5.1B)	Doesn't fit	–	–
Llama 4 Scout 17B-16E Instruct	109B (17B)	Doesn't fit	–	–
GLM-4.5-Air	106B (12B)	Doesn't fit	–	–
Qwen3-Coder-Next (80B-A3B)	80B (3B)	Doesn't fit	–	–
Llama 3.3 70B Instruct	70B	Doesn't fit	–	–

Prices

No prices recorded for this device yet. All prices →

Frequently asked questions

Which LLMs can the M5 run?

With 32 GB and an 8K context, the largest models that fit include: Qwen3.5-35B-A3B, Qwen3.6-35B-A3B, Qwen3-32B, DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-32B, Gemma 4 31B IT. See the full table below.

How fast is the M5 for local LLMs?

Generation speed is mostly set by memory bandwidth (153 GB/s). For Llama 3.1 8B Instruct at FP16, expect roughly 6.2 tokens/s; bigger models are slower.

Can the M5 run 70B models?

Llama 3.3 70B Instruct does not fit on the M5 (32 GB), even at Q4_K_M with an 8K context.

M5