The best local LLM for a Mac Studio M5 Max (36 GB) is Qwen 3.6-35B-A3B at ~104 tok/s (estimated). Its 36 GB fits 54 of the 111 models in the LLMCheck index, up to 35.2B-class. For everyday chat and coding, Qwen 3.6-35B-A3B is the sweet spot.
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Mac Studio M5 Max (36GB) on Amazon → · not sure? the Mac Advisor picks a config →
Ranked by LLMCheck suitability (capability balanced against speed on the M5 Max); the top pick is the best-ranked model that reaches 15 tok/s here and has a standard Mac runtime, and slower models are tagged slow. Click a model for its full figures and setup. Every speed carries its provenance mark: most are index estimates from the memory-bandwidth model, a filled square is a published figure and a hollow circle a community run — submit a real run →
| # | Model | Size | License | Speed | Capability |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Qwen 3.6-35B-A3B | 35B MoE | Apache 2.0 | estimated104 tok/s | 38/50 |
| 2 | KAT-Coder-V2.5 | 35B MoE | Apache 2.0 | estimated91 tok/s | 39/50 |
| 3 | Qwen3.8-27B | 27.8B | Apache 2.0 | estimated22 tok/s | 46/50 |
| 4 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | 30B MoE | OpenMDW | estimated100 tok/s | 36/50 |
| 5 | Qwen 3.6-27B | 27B | Apache 2.0 | estimated23 tok/s | 44/50 |
| 6 | North Mini Code 1.0 | 30.5B MoE | Apache 2.0 | estimated89 tok/s | 36/50 |
| 7 | Gemma 4 26B-A4B | 26B MoE | Apache 2.0 | estimated93 tok/s | 35/50 |
| 8 | LFM2.5-24B-A2B | 24B MoE | LFM Open | estimated88 tok/s | 35/50 |
| 9 | Laguna XS 2.1 | 33B MoE | OpenMDW | estimated103 tok/s | 33/50 |
| 10 | MiniCPM-V 4.7 35B-A3B | 35.2B MoE | Apache 2.0 | estimated83 tok/s | 35/50 |
| 11 | Muse Glimmer 30B | 30B | Apache 2.0 | estimated20 tok/s | 42/50 |
| 12 | Nemotron-Cascade 2 | 30B MoE | NVIDIA Open | estimated103 tok/s | 30/50 |
Showing the top 12 of 54 models that fit in 36 GB. See the full leaderboard or all benchmarks.
The fastest way to get started is Ollama. Install it, then pull the model by its tag (checked on ollama.com, 2026-10-17):
ollama run qwen3.6:35b-a3b · model card →
Prefer a GUI? LM Studio gives you a one-click download and chat window. For step-by-step help see our Ollama install guide, or open the Qwen 3.6-35B-A3B on M5 Max page for its figures and setup.
The Mac Studio M5 Max (36 GB) runs 54 of the models in the LLMCheck index, led by Qwen 3.6-35B-A3B. Grab one and start running LLMs offline today:
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Qwen 3.6-35B-A3B (35B MoE, Apache 2.0) is the best all-round pick at ~104 tok/s (estimated) on the Mac Studio M5 Max. If you want maximum speed, Gemma 4 E2B hits ~216 tok/s (estimated); for maximum capability, Qwen3.8-27B still fits in 36 GB.
About 54 of the 111 models in the LLMCheck index fit in 36 GB of unified memory, from compact models up to MiniCPM-V 4.7 35B-A3B (35.2B MoE).
No. A dense 70B such as Llama 3.3 70B needs about 44 GB at 4-bit; with 36 GB, stick to models like Qwen 3.6-35B-A3B. For a 70B, look at a 64 GB+ Mac.
36 GB is enough for dense models up to about 32B at 4-bit (the largest in the index that fits is QwQ 32B), and for mixture-of-experts models such as KAT-Coder-V2.5 (~91 tok/s (estimated)). As a rule of thumb a 4-bit model needs about 0.57 GB per billion parameters plus ~2 GB, and macOS needs its own share of memory too. Because Apple Silicon uses unified memory, the same pool serves as system RAM and GPU memory.