The M5 Max 128GB 14" has just arrived. I've been looking forward to putting this through its paces. Testing begins now. Results will be posted as comments below — no video, no lengthy writeup, just the raw numbers. Clean and simple.
Apologies for the delay. I initially ran the tests using BatchGenerator, but the speeds weren't quite what I expected. I ended up setting up a fresh Python virtual environment and re-running everything with pure mlx_lm using stream_generate, which is what pushed the update back.
I know many of you have been waiting - I'm sorry for keeping you! I take it as a sign of just how much excitement there is around the M5 Max.(I was genuinely hyped for this one myself.) Personally, I'm really happy with the results. What do you all think?
Models Tested
- Qwen3.5-122B-A10B-4bit
- Qwen3-Coder-Next-8bit
- Qwen3.5-27B-Claude-4.6-Opus-Distilled-MLX-6bit
- gpt-oss-120b-MXFP4-Q8
As for Qwen3.5-35B-A3B-4bit — I don't actually have that one downloaded, so unfortunately I wasn't able to include it. Sorry about that!
Results were originally posted as comments, and have since been compiled here in the main post for easier access
Qwen3.5-122B-A10B-4bit (mlx) cryingneko@MacBook-Pro mlx-lm % mlx_lm.generate --model /Volumes/SSD/Models/Qwen3.5-122B-A10B-4bit --prompt "$(cat /tmp/prompt_4096.txt)" --max-tokens 128 ========== Prompt: 4106 tokens, 881.466 tokens-per-sec Generation: 128 tokens, 65.853 tokens-per-sec Peak memory: 71.910 GB (mlx) cryingneko@MacBook-Pro mlx-lm % mlx_lm.generate --model /Volumes/SSD/Models/Qwen3.5-122B-A10B-4bit --prompt "$(cat /tmp/prompt_16384.txt)" --max-tokens 128 ========== Prompt: 16394 tokens, 1239.734 tokens-per-sec Generation: 128 tokens, 60.639 tokens-per-sec Peak memory: 73.803 GB (mlx) cryingneko@MacBook-Pro mlx-lm % mlx_lm.generate --model /Volumes/SSD/Models/Qwen3.5-122B-A10B-4bit --prompt "$(cat /tmp/prompt_32768.txt)" --max-tokens 128 ========== Prompt: 32778 tokens, 1067.824 tokens-per-sec Generation: 128 tokens, 54.923 tokens-per-sec Peak memory: 76.397 GB Qwen3-Coder-Next-8bit (mlx) cryingneko@MacBook-Pro mlx-lm % mlx_lm.generate --model /Volumes/SSD/Models/Qwen3-Coder-Next-8bit --prompt "$(cat /tmp/prompt_4096.txt)" --max-tokens 128 ========== Prompt: 4105 tokens, 754.927 tokens-per-sec Generation: 60 tokens, 79.296 tokens-per-sec Peak memory: 87.068 GB (mlx) cryingneko@MacBook-Pro mlx-lm % mlx_lm.generate --model /Volumes/SSD/Models/Qwen3-Coder-Next-8bit --prompt "$(cat /tmp/prompt_16384.txt)" --max-tokens 128 ========== Prompt: 16393 tokens, 1802.144 tokens-per-sec Generation: 60 tokens, 74.293 tokens-per-sec Peak memory: 88.176 GB (mlx) cryingneko@MacBook-Pro mlx-lm % mlx_lm.generate --model /Volumes/SSD/Models/Qwen3-Coder-Next-8bit --prompt "$(cat /tmp/prompt_32768.txt)" --max-tokens 128 ========== Prompt: 32777 tokens, 1887.158 tokens-per-sec Generation: 58 tokens, 68.624 tokens-per-sec Peak memory: 89.652 GB (mlx) cryingneko@MacBook-Pro mlx-lm % mlx_lm.generate --model /Volumes/SSD/Models/Qwen3-Coder-Next-8bit --prompt "$(cat /tmp/prompt_65536.txt)" --max-tokens 128 ========== Prompt: 65545 tokens, 1432.730 tokens-per-sec Generation: 61 tokens, 48.212 tokens-per-sec Peak memory: 92.605 GB (mlx) cryingneko@MacBook-Pro mlx-lm % mlx_lm.generate --model /Volumes/SSD/Models/Qwen3-Coder-Next-8bit --prompt "$(cat /tmp/prompt_16384.txt)" --max-tokens 128 ========== Prompt: 16393 tokens, 1802.144 tokens-per-sec Generation: 60 tokens, 74.293 tokens-per-sec Peak memory: 88.176 GB (mlx) cryingneko@MacBook-Pro mlx-lm % mlx_lm.generate --model /Volumes/SSD/Models/Qwen3-Coder-Next-8bit --prompt "$(cat /tmp/prompt_32768.txt)" --max-tokens 128 ========== Prompt: 32777 tokens, 1887.158 tokens-per-sec Generation: 58 tokens, 68.624 tokens-per-sec Peak memory: 89.652 GB (mlx) cryingneko@MacBook-Pro mlx-lm % mlx_lm.generate --model /Volumes/SSD/Models/Qwen3-Coder-Next-8bit --prompt "$(cat /tmp/prompt_65536.txt)" --max-tokens 128 ========== Prompt: 65545 tokens, 1432.730 tokens-per-sec Generation: 61 tokens, 48.212 tokens-per-sec Peak memory: 92.605 GB Qwen3.5-27B-Claude-4.6-Opus-Distilled-MLX-6bit (mlx) cryingneko@MacBook-Pro mlx-lm % mlx_lm.generate --model /Volumes/SSD/Models/Qwen3.5-27B-Claude-4.6-Opus-Distilled-MLX-6bit --prompt "$(cat /tmp/prompt_4096.txt)" --max-tokens 128 ========== Prompt: 4107 tokens, 811.134 tokens-per-sec Generation: 128 tokens, 23.648 tokens-per-sec Peak memory: 25.319 GB (mlx) cryingneko@MacBook-Pro mlx-lm % mlx_lm.generate --model /Volumes/SSD/Models/Qwen3.5-27B-Claude-4.6-Opus-Distilled-MLX-6bit --prompt "$(cat /tmp/prompt_16384.txt)" --max-tokens 128 ========== Prompt: 16395 tokens, 686.682 tokens-per-sec Generation: 128 tokens, 20.311 tokens-per-sec Peak memory: 27.332 GB (mlx) cryingneko@MacBook-Pro mlx-lm % mlx_lm.generate --model /Volumes/SSD/Models/Qwen3.5-27B-Claude-4.6-Opus-Distilled-MLX-6bit --prompt "$(cat /tmp/prompt_32768.txt)" --max-tokens 128 ========== Prompt: 32779 tokens, 591.383 tokens-per-sec Generation: 128 tokens, 14.908 tokens-per-sec Peak memory: 30.016 GB (mlx) cryingneko@MacBook-Pro mlx-lm % mlx_lm.generate --model /Volumes/SSD/Models/Qwen3.5-27B-Claude-4.6-Opus-Distilled-MLX-6bit --prompt "$(cat /tmp/prompt_65536.txt)" --max-tokens 128 ========== Prompt: 65547 tokens, 475.828 tokens-per-sec Generation: 128 tokens, 14.225 tokens-per-sec Peak memory: 35.425 GB gpt-oss-120b-MXFP4-Q8 (mlx) cryingneko@MacBook-Pro mlx-lm % mlx_lm.generate --model /Volumes/SSD/Models/gpt-oss-120b-MXFP4-Q8 --prompt "$(cat /tmp/prompt_4096.txt)" --max-tokens 128 ========== Prompt: 4164 tokens, 1325.062 tokens-per-sec Generation: 128 tokens, 87.873 tokens-per-sec Peak memory: 64.408 GB (mlx) cryingneko@MacBook-Pro mlx-lm % mlx_lm.generate --model /Volumes/SSD/Models/gpt-oss-120b-MXFP4-Q8 --prompt "$(cat /tmp/prompt_16384.txt)" --max-tokens 128 ========== Prompt: 16452 tokens, 2710.460 tokens-per-sec Generation: 128 tokens, 75.963 tokens-per-sec Peak memory: 64.857 GB (mlx) cryingneko@MacBook-Pro mlx-lm % mlx_lm.generate --model /Volumes/SSD/Models/gpt-oss-120b-MXFP4-Q8 --prompt "$(cat /tmp/prompt_32768.txt)" --max-tokens 128 ========== Prompt: 32836 tokens, 2537.420 tokens-per-sec Generation: 128 tokens, 64.469 tokens-per-sec Peak memory: 65.461 GB
