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AIPCs

Apple M5

The chip in the 2026 MacBook Air and the entry MacBook Pro. With 16 to 32 GB of unified memory at 153 GB/s it runs models up to about 14B at reading speed; 24 GB or more also fits gpt-oss 20B, a fast mixture-of-experts model that 16 GB cannot hold.

Specifications

Processor
10 cores (4 super + 6 efficiency)
Graphics
8-core or 10-core Apple GPU with Neural Accelerators
Memory
Unified memory, up to 32 GB
Memory bandwidth
153 GB/s (theoretical peak)

What it can run with 32 GB

Estimated writing speed with an 8K-token conversation. Estimates, not our tests; see how we estimate.

Models and estimated speed on Apple M5 with 32 GB
Model (4-bit) Tokens/s
Gemma 4 E4B 4.59 GB 27-35
Llama 3.1 8B 4.92 GB 18-23
Qwen3.5 9B 5.68 GB 17-23
Gemma 4 12B 7.12 GB 13-17
gpt-oss 20B 12.11 GB 34-44
Qwen3.8 27B 16.46 GB 6-7
Qwen3 Coder 30B-A3B 18.56 GB 39-51
Qwen3.6 35B-A3B 22.13 GB 34-43
Llama 3.3 70B 42.52 GB Doesn't fit
gpt-oss 120B 63.39 GB Doesn't fit

Machines with the Apple M5

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Machines we cover, sorted by memory bandwidth
Machine Memory Bandwidth NPU Price Status Store
Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M5, 24 GB) Apple M5, 10-core CPU 24 GB unified 153 GB/s None $1,499list price Researched, not tested Check Apple