Canonical Rankings

Best Macs for this model

gpt-oss 120B ranked across the Mac lineup at the best practical quantization, using the best available runtime evidence. Model picker is focused on current-market choices.

Model

Quantization

Sort

Runtime

29 ranked MacsUse the strongest current runtime evidence for each row.28 historical models hiddenBaselinesStatic paths cover only canonical model pages; sort and quantization stay as query state.

Rank	Mac	Score	Quant	Tok/s	Runtime	Fits	Headroom	Context	Evidence	Price	Why it ranks here
1	Mac Studio M3 Ultra 256GB	252	8bit	10.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 10.0 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	146.0 GB	131k	Estimated	$7,499	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 10.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 146.0 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
2	Mac Pro M2 Ultra 192GB	188	8bit	10.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 10.0 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	82.0 GB	131k	Estimated	$6,999	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 10.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 82.0 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
3	Mac Studio M4 Max 128GB	138	Q6_K	10.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: Q6_K · 10.0 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	37.6 GB	131k	Estimated	$4,499	Q6_K is the current best practical quantization. 10.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 37.6 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
4	MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB 16-inch	138	Q6_K	10.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: Q6_K · 10.0 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	37.6 GB	131k	Estimated	$5,999	Q6_K is the current best practical quantization. 10.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 37.6 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
5	MacBook Pro M5 Max 128GB 16-inch	126	Q6_K	7.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: Q6_K · 7.0 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	37.6 GB	131k	Estimated	$5,399	Q6_K is the current best practical quantization. 7.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 37.6 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
6	Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB	117	Q5_K_M	10.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: Q5_K_M · 10.0 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	17.4 GB	52k	Estimated	$3,999	Q5_K_M is the current best practical quantization. 10.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 17.4 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
7	Mac Studio M4 Max 64GB	78	Q3_K_L	10.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: Q3_K_L · 10.0 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	13.5 GB	65k	Estimated	$2,999	Q3_K_L is the current best practical quantization. 10.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 13.5 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
8	MacBook Pro M4 Max 64GB 16-inch	78	Q3_K_L	10.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: Q3_K_L · 10.0 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	13.5 GB	65k	Estimated	$4,499	Q3_K_L is the current best practical quantization. 10.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 13.5 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
9	Mac Mini M4 Pro 48GB	74	mlx-dynamic-2.7bpw	10.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: mlx-dynamic-2.7bpw · 10.0 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	10.2 GB	51k	Estimated	$1,599	mlx-dynamic-2.7bpw is the current best practical quantization. 10.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 10.2 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
10	MacBook Pro M4 Pro 48GB 14-inch	74	mlx-dynamic-2.7bpw	10.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: mlx-dynamic-2.7bpw · 10.0 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	10.2 GB	51k	Estimated	$2,499	mlx-dynamic-2.7bpw is the current best practical quantization. 10.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 10.2 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
11	Mac Studio M4 Max 48GB	74	mlx-dynamic-2.7bpw	10.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: mlx-dynamic-2.7bpw · 10.0 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	10.2 GB	51k	Estimated	$2,499	mlx-dynamic-2.7bpw is the current best practical quantization. 10.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 10.2 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
12	MacBook Pro M4 Pro 48GB 16-inch	74	mlx-dynamic-2.7bpw	10.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: mlx-dynamic-2.7bpw · 10.0 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	10.2 GB	51k	Estimated	$2,999	mlx-dynamic-2.7bpw is the current best practical quantization. 10.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 10.2 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
13	MacBook Pro M4 Max 48GB 14-inch	74	mlx-dynamic-2.7bpw	10.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: mlx-dynamic-2.7bpw · 10.0 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	10.2 GB	51k	Estimated	$3,499	mlx-dynamic-2.7bpw is the current best practical quantization. 10.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 10.2 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
14	MacBook Pro M4 Max 48GB 16-inch	74	mlx-dynamic-2.7bpw	10.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: mlx-dynamic-2.7bpw · 10.0 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	10.2 GB	51k	Estimated	$3,999	mlx-dynamic-2.7bpw is the current best practical quantization. 10.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 10.2 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
15	Mac Studio M4 Max 36GB	70	IQ2_K_S	10.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: IQ2_K_S · 10.0 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	6.3 GB	22k	Estimated	$1,999	IQ2_K_S is the current best practical quantization. 10.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 6.3 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
16	MacBook Pro M4 Max 36GB 14-inch	70	IQ2_K_S	10.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: IQ2_K_S · 10.0 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	6.3 GB	22k	Estimated	$2,999	IQ2_K_S is the current best practical quantization. 10.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 6.3 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
17	MacBook Pro M4 Max 36GB 16-inch	70	IQ2_K_S	10.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: IQ2_K_S · 10.0 tok/s · Ollama · Estimated	Ollama	Fits	6.3 GB	22k	Estimated	$3,499	IQ2_K_S is the current best practical quantization. 10.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 6.3 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
18	Mac Mini M4 16GB	0	F32	—	Ollama	No	-420.9 GB	—	Estimated	$499	gpt-oss 120B does not fit on Mac Mini M4 16GB at the current practical quantization.
19	Mac Mini M4 24GB	0	F32	—	Ollama	No	-412.9 GB	—	Estimated	$599	gpt-oss 120B does not fit on Mac Mini M4 24GB at the current practical quantization.
20	Mac Mini M4 32GB	0	F32	—	Ollama	No	-404.9 GB	—	Estimated	$799	gpt-oss 120B does not fit on Mac Mini M4 32GB at the current practical quantization.
21	MacBook Air M4 16GB 13-inch	0	F32	—	Ollama	No	-420.9 GB	—	Estimated	$1,099	gpt-oss 120B does not fit on MacBook Air M4 16GB 13-inch at the current practical quantization.
22	MacBook Air M4 24GB 13-inch	0	F32	—	Ollama	No	-412.9 GB	—	Estimated	$1,299	gpt-oss 120B does not fit on MacBook Air M4 24GB 13-inch at the current practical quantization.
23	MacBook Air M4 16GB 15-inch	0	F32	—	Ollama	No	-420.9 GB	—	Estimated	$1,299	gpt-oss 120B does not fit on MacBook Air M4 16GB 15-inch at the current practical quantization.
24	Mac Mini M4 Pro 24GB	0	F32	—	Ollama	No	-412.9 GB	—	Estimated	$1,399	gpt-oss 120B does not fit on Mac Mini M4 Pro 24GB at the current practical quantization.
25	MacBook Air M4 32GB 13-inch	0	F32	—	Ollama	No	-404.9 GB	—	Estimated	$1,499	gpt-oss 120B does not fit on MacBook Air M4 32GB 13-inch at the current practical quantization.
26	MacBook Air M4 24GB 15-inch	0	F32	—	Ollama	No	-412.9 GB	—	Estimated	$1,499	gpt-oss 120B does not fit on MacBook Air M4 24GB 15-inch at the current practical quantization.
27	MacBook Air M4 32GB 15-inch	0	F32	—	Ollama	No	-404.9 GB	—	Estimated	$1,699	gpt-oss 120B does not fit on MacBook Air M4 32GB 15-inch at the current practical quantization.
28	MacBook Pro M4 Pro 24GB 14-inch	0	F32	—	Ollama	No	-412.9 GB	—	Estimated	$1,999	gpt-oss 120B does not fit on MacBook Pro M4 Pro 24GB 14-inch at the current practical quantization.
29	MacBook Pro M4 Pro 24GB 16-inch	0	F32	—	Ollama	No	-412.9 GB	—	Estimated	$2,499	gpt-oss 120B does not fit on MacBook Pro M4 Pro 24GB 16-inch at the current practical quantization.

gpt-oss 120B — ranking first, raw rows below

Start with the ranked Mac table above. Use the rest of this page to inspect raw Apple Silicon coverage and model metadata.

Quantizations observed: Q4_K - Medium

2Benchmark rows

2Chip tiers covered

10.0Fastest avg tok/s (M4 Ultra (192 GB))

—Minimum RAM observed

Quick take

Fastest published result is 10.0 tok/s on M4 Ultra (192 GB) at Q4_K - Medium. Published runtimes include MLX, Ollama. Start with Rankings for the decision, then use the raw rows below to audit the evidence.

Based on 2 external benchmarks; no lab runs yet.

Published runtimes: MLX, Ollama.

Need the best Mac for this model? Use Buy Need a setup-first answer? Use Run Checking whether it fits? Use Fit Browse Macs by exact hardware Need the full audit trail? Use Bench Comparing against rented GPUs? Use AI Datacenter Index

Catalog record

117BTotal params

5.1BActive params

131,072Context window

2025-08-05Release date

What this model is, and what Apple Silicon users are actually seeing

Official model cards tell you what the model is for and which software stacks it targets. Field reality below shows how much Apple Silicon evidence we have so far.

Official brief

Permissive Apache 2.0 license: Build freely without copyleft restrictions or patent risk—ideal for experimentation, customization, and commercial deployment. Configurable reasoning effort: Easily adjust the reasoning effort (low, medium, high) based on your specific use case and latency needs.

Official source · Raw model card

agentscodingreasoning

Official specs

Architecture: Mixture of experts.
Total parameters: 117B.
Active parameters: 5.1B.
Context: 131072 tokens.
Experts: 4 active / 128 total.
Quantization: MXFP4 MoE weights.

Official takeaways

Permissive Apache 2.0 license: Build freely without copyleft restrictions or patent risk—ideal for experimentation, customization, and commercial deployment.
Configurable reasoning effort: Easily adjust the reasoning effort (low, medium, high) based on your specific use case and latency needs.
MXFP4 quantization: The models were post-trained with MXFP4 quantization of the MoE weights, making gpt-oss-120b run on a single 80GB GPU (like NVIDIA H100 or AMD MI300X) and the gpt-oss-20b model run within 16GB of mem…

Official model cards describe intent, capabilities, and supported stacks. They do not prove Apple Silicon speed by themselves.

Field reality on Apple Silicon

gpt-oss 120B: 3 Apple Silicon field reports; best reported generation ~87.873 tok/s; best reported prompt processing ~2710.46 tok/s; reported RAM use ~64.41-65.46GB; seen on MacBook Pro M5 MAX 128GB; via MLX.

2Benchmark rows

3Field reports

1Practitioner signals

Sparse BenchmarksEvidence status

What practitioners keep saying

The captured post says the operator re-ran with a fresh Python virtual environment and pure mlx_lm / stream_generate after earlier BatchGenerator speeds looked unreliable.
At 4096 token context, gpt-oss-120b-MXFP4-Q8 reports 87.873 tok/s generation, 1325.062 tok/s prompt processing, and peak memory 64.408 GB with 128 generated tokens.
At 16384 token context, gpt-oss-120b-MXFP4-Q8 reports 75.963 tok/s generation, 2710.460 tok/s prompt processing, and peak memory 64.857 GB with 128 generated tokens.

Apple Silicon field sources

r/LocalLLaMA
2026-03-11 · MacBook Pro M5 Max 128GB · MLX
A captured M5 Max 128GB MLX sweep gives gpt-oss-120b Apple Silicon fit and speed evidence across short and deeper prompts.

Runtime mentions in the field

MLX

Hardware mentioned in reports

128GBMacBookMacBook Pro

What would improve confidence

Expand Cross Chip Benchmark Coverage
Reproduce Field Performance Signal
Upgrade To First Party Measurement

Current published coverage

Published chip coverage includes M4 Ultra (192 GB), M5 Max (128 GB). Fastest published row is 10.0 tok/s on M4 Ultra (192 GB) at Q4_K - Medium.

M4 Ultra (192 GB)M5 Max (128 GB)

Related gpt-oss models with published pages: gpt-oss 20B

Raw benchmark rows for gpt-oss 120B

Rows stay below the ranking because this page is answer-first. Use them to inspect exact chips, quantizations, runtimes, and sources.

Chip	Quant	RAM req.	Context	Avg tok/s	Prompt tok/s	Runtime	Source
M4 Ultra (192 GB)	Q4_K - Medium	—	—	10.0 tok/s	—	MLX	ref
M5 Max (128 GB)	Q4_K - Medium	—	—	7.0 tok/s	—	Ollama	ref

Best Macs for gpt-oss 120B

Ordered by fastest published tok/s on the chip family in each Mac. Click through for the full machine page.

MacBook Pro M5 Max 128GB 16-inch — 7.0 tok/s

Chips with published results for gpt-oss 120B

M4 Ultra (192 GB)M5 Max (128 GB)

Data

benchmarks.json — full dataset · models.json — model summaries · benchmarks.csv — CSV export

See all models →