MacBook Pro 16-inch M4 Max 36GB

The 2024 MacBook Pro generation: 14-inch M4 Pro (24/48GB, 273 GB/s, 30W) and 16-inch M4 Max (36GB on the binned die at 410 GB/s, 64/128GB at 546 GB/s, 60W). Superseded by the M5 line in 2026 but still current inventory at lower prices.

What it does well:

• M4 Max 546 GB/s: within 11% of the M5 Max for a used-market price.
• M4 Pro value: 273 GB/s and 48GB handles 70B dense models at 4-bit with room for context, at a $2,399 laptop.

Where it falls short: no day-one MLX optimizations for the newest Apple kernels land on M4 hardware after M5; the binned M4 Max (36GB) gives up bandwidth to reach its lower price point.

Run it locally: Ollama, LM Studio, or mlx-lm. The modeldex results rank checkpoints by fit and estimated tok/s on this config.