Which machine to buy for local AI above $4,000

The short answer

Find the memory your model needs, then read across. These are August and September asking-price comparisons, not current offers: new listed below the used ask at 64GB, 96GB and 128GB; at 256GB used was about $800 cheaper. The 512GB M5 Ultra was announced for late October without a verified price or delivery date for your location. Recheck exact configurations and current stock before choosing a route.

Pick	Price, source, date	Memory / bandwidth	Next step
Test what you own first	$0	What you have	Check what it runs
Fits in 64GB: new M5 Max, 40-core GPU, not an Ultra	About $3,500, Daring Fireball, Aug., rounded	64GB / 614GB/s	Apple
A 120B mixture-of-experts model in 128GB: GMKtec EVO-X2	$3,649.99 at Newegg, Sept. 15 — not an Amazon price	128GB / 256GB/s	Exact 128GB listing on Amazon; Newegg
96-128GB on a Mac, memory over speed: new M5 Max 128GB	About $5,100, Daring Fireball, Aug., rounded	128GB / 614GB/s	Apple
Fits in 96GB, speed over memory: new M5 Ultra	$5,499, Apple, Sept. 16	96GB / 1.2TB/s — about twice the Max’s bandwidth, for about $400 more and 32GB less	Apple
256GB: used M3 Ultra to save, new M5 Ultra for speed	Used $9,999 median ask, Aug. 18-25; new $10,799, AppleInsider, Sept. 15	256GB / 819GB/s used, 1.2TB/s new	Used listings or Apple
512GB: verify used M3 Ultra or wait	$17,448 median ask, Aug. 18-25; M5 Ultra announced for late Oct., unpriced	512GB / 819GB/s	The wait branch
A few hours a week: rent	$1.69-$6.94 an hour, RunPod, Sept. 16	Up to 288GB on one card	Break-even hours

What each size holds

Model sizes are canirun.ai estimates at roughly 4-bit quantization, and fitting a model is not running it fast: measured speeds by model are the other half of this decision, and every M5 figure there is an estimate. 64GB holds a 70B dense model such as Llama 3.3 70B (39.1GB). 96GB holds GPT-OSS 120B, Mistral Small 4 and Qwen 3.5 122B. A 128GB Ryzen AI Max+ 395 box holds gpt-oss-120b’s 65.4GB. On a Framework Desktop, the same chip, it ran at 33.7 tokens a second in a third party’s llama.cpp test, while a dense 70B managed 4.5 in the same tester’s runs, so this class is the pick for mixture-of-experts models, not dense ones. Framework’s $3,449 version was listed out of stock Sept. 15, and the mini PC comparison prices the rest. 256GB holds Qwen 3 VL 235B, Hy3 295B and MiniMax M3 428B; 512GB holds GLM-5.3 753B. Past 512GB — DeepSeek V4 Pro at about 820GB, Kimi K3 at about 1.4TB — means two or three used 512GB M3 Ultras at about $34,896 a pair; see the cluster math. One trap there: Apple’s RDMA clustering over Thunderbolt 5 does not work on the M1 and M2 Ultras, so the used Ultras that look like cheap cluster nodes are locked out of the fast path.

What used Mac Studios ask, Sept. 15

From our daily Mac price tracker, generated Sept. 15 at 23:45 UTC. Every row is an asking price, not a sale.

Chip	Offers	Sources	Median ask	Range in the pool	What the row is worth
M3 Ultra	88	4	$7,425.84	$721-$25,000	The widest pool on the page. It mixes 96GB machines with 512GB ones, so the median is not a price you can shop at.
M1 Ultra	39	3	$4,859.10	$2,534.28-$10,074.32	A 2022 machine asking within about $640 of a new M5 Ultra.
M2 Ultra	40	1	$4,049.50	$3,199-$8,400	Forty offers from a single source. We would not buy on this number alone.
M4 Max	122	8	$3,079.06	$1,949-$7,099.99	Below this band, and above the $2,499 Apple lists for both the outgoing M4 Max and its replacement.

Three things this table is not. It is not configuration-matched: the tracker groups by chip, so a 512GB M3 Ultra and a 96GB one sit in the same pool, which is most of why that median is $7,425.84. It is not a record of completed sales — a $25,000 listing proves someone typed $25,000. And the M2 Ultra row rests on one source, which is a thin basis for a $4,000 decision no matter how many offers it contains.

What survives all three caveats is the shape: the used Ultra pools cluster just under what Apple charges for a new M5 Ultra, and the used M4 Max pool sits above what Apple charges for a new M5 Max.

Config-matched, where the discount is and isn't

The chip-level medians above are current but coarse. These rows are configuration-matched — chip and memory exactly — from our Aug. 18-25 observations, carried from the Mac Studio resale report and the local AI memory comparison with their original dates. They are three weeks older than the table above and far more decision-grade. The new machine in each row is the configuration Apple sells at the same memory size.

Used configuration	Median ask, Aug. 18-25	Listings	Against launch	The new alternative	Verdict
M1 Ultra 64GB	$4,049	16	101% of its $3,999 launch price	M5 Max 64GB, about $3,500 (Daring Fireball, rounded)	Buy new, and not an Ultra. The new machine holds the memory you asked for at about $549 less than this ask, with a warranty; you trade the used Ultra’s 800GB/s for 614GB/s. If you want more memory, the 128GB M5 Max costs less than the 96GB M5 Ultra.
M2 Ultra 64GB	$4,149	26	104%	M5 Max 64GB, about $3,500 (Daring Fireball, rounded)	Buy new, for the same reason — about $649 less, with the same 614GB/s against 800GB/s trade.
M3 Ultra 96GB	$6,774	28	169%	M5 Ultra 96GB, $5,499	Buy new. The used machine asks $1,275 more than a newer one with the same memory.
M1 Ultra 128GB	$5,249	not published in that report	—	M5 Max 128GB, about $5,100 (Daring Fireball, rounded)	The one row where used still buys something at a near-equal price. The new machine matches the memory for roughly $150 less; the used Ultra’s 800GB/s against its 614GB/s is what the extra money and the missing warranty buy.
M3 Ultra 256GB	$9,999	not published in that report	—	M5 Ultra 256GB, $10,799 (AppleInsider, Sept. 15; Apple sells 256GB only with the 36-core CPU and 80-core GPU)	Used, if price decides it: about $800 less. New buys 1.2TB/s against 819GB/s and a warranty.
M3 Ultra 512GB	$17,448	not published in that report	—	512GB M5 Ultra, late Oct., price unannounced	For 512GB, compare a verified used M3 Ultra with Apple’s 512GB M5 Ultra configuration when its price and delivery are published; wait if your workload can.

Five of six base Mac Studio models were asking at or above their launch prices in that snapshot, which is the finding this whole page rests on. Our usual advice — buy the machine somebody else already depreciated — assumes depreciation happened. In this band, through Sept. 15, mostly it has not. Read down the verdict column: at 64GB, 96GB and 128GB the new machine is at or below the used ask. At 256GB it is not, once the chip upgrade Apple requires for that memory is counted, and 512GB stays used-only until Apple prices the M5 Ultra version.

Correction: an earlier version of this page priced the 256GB M5 Ultra at $9,499, leaving out that $1,300 chip upgrade, and told 256GB buyers to buy new.

Two honest deflations. The Aug. 18-25 medians are three weeks old, and asks for the models Apple replaced have since fallen: across 17 M3 Ultra offers our crawler priced on both sides of the Aug. 25 announcement, the matched basket was down 14.6% through Sept. 15 and the median listing fell $500, per our matched panel. Those are two different statistics — a basket total and a per-listing median — and neither is the other; if 256GB asks fell with them, used’s lead at that size is wider than $800. And only Apple’s $2,499 and $5,499 base prices were read from Apple; the M5 Max memory figures are rounded and the $10,799 is AppleInsider’s, so check them at Apple before you act on the verdict column.

The wait branch

Apple listed the Mac Studio as available starting Sept. 22; when we read its store Aug. 25 it quoted M5 Ultra delivery by Oct. 12 for a New Jersey ZIP code. Those dates are historical observations, not an October delivery promise. Apple announced the 512GB M5 Ultra for late October without a price we could verify; its specifications tie it to the 36-core CPU and 80-core GPU, a $1,300 upgrade on its own. Nothing in the M5 generation has a measured local AI benchmark we can point you at — our own M5 and M6 figures are bandwidth arithmetic, labeled as estimates, and our measured numbers cover the chips that came before. If your current machine runs the workload, keep it while checking a real 512GB price and delivery. If time matters, compare a verified used M3 Ultra, rental cost and the cost of waiting; do not use the August median as a current offer.

Renting instead, and what it takes to beat it

Renting GPU time by the hour beats a five-figure machine that idles, and there is a number that decides it. Take the purchase price, divide by 36 months, then divide by the hourly rate of a rented card with comparable memory. Rates below are RunPod’s published community-tier figures read Sept. 16, carried from the buy-versus-rent comparison; the arithmetic is ours.

If you were going to spend	Over 36 months	Nearest rented card, RunPod community, Sept. 16	Hours a month before buying is cheaper
$5,499, new M5 Ultra 96GB	$152.75 a month	RTX Pro 6000, 96GB, $1.69 an hour	about 90
$10,799, new M5 Ultra 256GB	$299.97 a month	B300, 288GB, $6.94 an hour	about 43
$17,448, used M3 Ultra 512GB	$484.67 a month	nothing published reaches 512GB on one card	—

The direction of that table is the useful part, and it runs against the intuition that expensive machines are harder to justify. The 96GB machine needs about three hours a day, every day, before it costs less than renting one. The 256GB machine needs about 10 hours a week, because the nearest rented card is expensive enough to pay the Mac off quickly. Above 288GB the comparison runs out: no single card in RunPod’s published list holds 512GB, and multi-GPU pods exist that we have not priced.

Three things that table is not. It is not a speed comparison — the rented Nvidia cards are faster than any Mac here and we publish no measured comparison between them. It is not a flattering pairing for buying: the 288GB B300 holds more than the 256GB Mac it is matched against, so that row understates renting’s case rather than overstating it. And no rented hour keeps your data on your own hardware or leaves you an asset at the end, which is the argument the resale figures make for the buy branch — asking prices, not sales.

Compare current rental rates at RunPod and Vast.ai.

Where to buy

We quote no Amazon price, and none of the prices on this page is an Amazon offer.

Product listings. Two 128GB Ryzen AI Max+ 395 listings: GMKtec EVO-X2, 128GB and 2TB, on Amazon and Minisforum MS-S1 Max, 128GB and 2TB, on Amazon. Titles read Sept. 15; seller, price and stock unchecked. The $3,649.99 and $3,799 figures above are Newegg’s and Minisforum’s store prices that day, and the mini PC comparison lists the other stores.

Paid, search only. Mac Studio search results on Amazon. This opens search results, not a specific product; confirm the chip, the memory, the seller and whether AppleCare+ is bundled on the exact listing.

Apple. The Mac Studio store takes build-to-order memory up to 256GB; 512GB cannot be ordered until late October. The store showed us no delivery estimates on Sept. 16, so confirm delivery for your exact configuration there.

B&H. Product pages for the Mac Studio M5 Ultra, the Mac Studio M5 Max and the outgoing M4 Max Studio. B&H returned HTTP 403 to us on Sept. 16, so confirm price, configuration and stock on the page.

Newegg. Newegg’s Mac Studio listings include third-party resellers whose prices for the same machine scatter; check the seller and the configuration.

Used. eBay’s Mac Studio Ultra listings: price the listing against the config-matched table, not a crossed-out number, buy from a seller with a returns policy and run the 10-minute inspection checklist the day it arrives. Our pages for the used M1 Ultra, used M2 Ultra and M3 Ultra show what the market is asking.

Rent. RunPod and Vast.ai, with the break-even hours above.

What would change this

Four things, and the first two are close.

The 512GB M5 Ultra lands in late October. When it has a price, the $17,448 used 512GB row — the only size where used is the only route — loses the monopoly that justifies it, and the largest-machine verdict is rewritten. Only Apple’s $2,499 and $5,499 base prices were read from Apple; the M5 Max memory figures are rounded and the $10,799 is AppleInsider’s, so a price read at Apple that differs from them moves the verdicts before anything else does, starting with the 256GB row, where new and used are $800 apart.

Then the benchmarks. No M5 machine has a measured local AI number we can cite; when one exists, the wait branch resolves in one direction or the other rather than resting on an absence.

Then the rental rates, which move faster than anything else here. RunPod’s community tier is peer-supplied and its rates follow supply, so a change at $1.69 or $6.94 an hour moves the break-even rows without any hardware changing at all.

And the used market itself. Asks for the models Apple replaced have already fallen through Sept. 15, and trade-ins from the first M5 deliveries have not reached resale yet. We rerun the four medians on this page whenever the tracker regenerates; if the Ultra pools drop far enough, the verdict column flips row by row and we will say so here rather than quietly.

Still sizing the problem rather than the machine? Compare local AI memory by price per gigabyte and bandwidth, or start one band down with local AI hardware by budget and the 128GB mini PC comparison.