I love my MacBook Pro M5 128GB RAM and I love qwen3.6.

BUT DO NOT buy this MacBook if you plan on doing serious coding using local LLMs with it. The reason is simple: your fingers will burn and your head will explode from the noise.

Running any kind of sophisticated job on the very laptop you are using is just not viable. Sure you can use it in clamshell mode, but forget touching it while working with AI coding or agents.

If you want to run Qwen3.6 27B / 35B at its best, get a MacMini M4 with 64GB of RAM and put it in the basement - or at least a few meters from your desk. Connect to it over LAN or Tailscale. The MacMini will also cost you almost 1/3 of the MacBook Pro.

Thank me later.

Apple does not sell a 64GB variant of the M4 Mac Mini. IIRC they never have; its always capped out at 48GB.

If you were planning on getting an M5 128GB; just get a DGX Spark (~$4500) or a 5090-equipped machine (~$4500) plus a Macbook Air (~$1500). You'll come in below the M5 Max 128 pricing (~$6700+ USD) and be happier for it.

> MacBook Pro M5 128GB RAM

614 GB/s of memory bandwidth

> MacMini M4 with 64GB of RAM

273 GB/s of memory bandwidth (also only currently available with 48GB)

When it comes to inference speed, you want your model to fit in memory, and then to have as much memory bandwidth as possible. In this case a hypothetical Mini with 1TB of memory would still be over 2x slower with 27-35B models.

And FWIW I have an M4 Max MBP 128GB that I keep on a Roost laptop stand, with a separate keyboard/mouse/video. It does fire up the cooling jets when running local LLMs, but stays within tolerance for me on noise. I haven't heat-tested it on longer runs, but I imagine the risen airflow helps a ton.

Nope, have both these machines, can confirm the M5 max blows the M4 mini away. It does get hot, but I use it mostly with an external monitor and keyboard. Conceptually I like the headless model better with a workstation, but work was buying the M5 and can't get it in any other form factor at the monute.

I opted to buy a normal 32GB laptop for this very reason. I know how loud and hot the GPUs in my desktop run when running even smallish models like Qwen 27B or Gemma 4 31B (which is a better model for most than Qwen 3.6, despite the benchmarks). I also have a Strix Halo which doesn't get loud, because it has a single huge fan, but it does get hot. So, there's no way a laptop could work as hard as models make them work, and not be unbearable. Tiny fans trying to remove all that heat? They gotta be screaming. No reason to spend all that money on a laptop that I couldn't realistically make use of. I do run a lot of VMs on my desktop, but I can get to those on a VPN.

It's a nice idea to run a model on a laptop so you can work anywhere...but, that's a job for models in the cloud. Not much data has to traverse the network, so it's not a big deal. Or one could also setup a VPN so you can reach a self-hosted model on a big box at home for things that require data privacy.

All that said, there are models that work great on very small devices for some tasks and won't work it to death. Gemma 4 12B QAT 4-bit runs on a 16GB device, maybe even smaller, including a tablet. It's the best self-hostable vision model I've tested for my purposes (categorization, identification, labeling, type stuff), beating much larger models. It's also a decent conversationalist with good prose but it doesn't know much of anything (not a lot of the world fits in 7GB), so it needs search if you want to use it for research. It's a pretty good tool user. I definitely wouldn't want to use it for code, though, beyond very simple stuff.

> The reason is simple: your fingers will burn and your head will explode from the noise.

So, just buy a mac mini and put it in the other room? ( Like everyone was doing in February? :)

I've been running coding agents on my laptop in yolo mode for the past half year or so (though mostly not local ones, laptop too slow!) and the way I'm doing that without terror is that I just gave them their own Linux user "agent". They're free to nuke their homedir /agent, and they can't touch (or even read) mine.

There's some slight ergonomics issues (I need to sudo into the user to do anything, but I set up an alias for it), sometimes I get issues with permissions or ownership (gave up on "sticky bits" and just made a function I can run once a day when it breaks).

There's enough hassle that I wish I just had a dedicated machine for it, and then I'd just give them root on it. (For giggles I gave claude root on a $3 VPS and that's going just fine...)

But yeah after months of trial and error I reinvented "just buy a mac mini" from first principles...

It's okay, completely wrong thread for this statement, but I wouldn't voluntarily use current MacOS (no idea if the older variants weren't terrible) over anything but ssh. Worse than Windows 11.

In general if you're setting up a local LLM you should assume it's going to be primarily working as a server and talking to various clients. I use my MBP, but that's because I don't travel much anymore so it can happily work as a server at all times. With the right agent setup you can probably manage most things from your phone even if you don't have a seperate machine to use as a client.

I have an older laptop I run a hermes agent on backed by an API based open (non-local) model and Macbook Pro M4 for running another model locally (also using hermes). The agents have a Mattermost (open source version of slack) server they run and I run Mattermost on my phone so I can talk to them and task them with things. In fact, it was through the hermes WhatsApp endpoint that I got the first agent (non-local) to setup the Mattermost server and unboard the second agent (local mbp).

Then I can just chat with them through Mattermost when I need work done. Whenever I need something done I just hope on the Mattermost server and chat with them. I've had them build me multiple research reports (the fully local agent did awesome at this), learn how to use Stable Diffusion on my desktop to generate images, install and perform maintenance on various local services I run (including Open WebUI).

I have an M4 Max and when I was trying out local LLM work with pi it has probably felt like the hottest I've ever felt any kind of Macbook be. I could feel the radiated heat off it even a few inches away. Honestly felt hotter than any Intel Macbook I've used. Because of that I stopped as I didn't want to harm my laptop in case I need to hold it for 10 years due to all the supply issues/price increases.

That's exactly what I'm doing -- Mini M4 Pro 64GB, qwen3.6.

My hearing is not great, but I think I would have noticed the fan, and I have never heard it. In fact, I had to google to find out if it even has a fan.

Try using DwarfStar 4 and use the --power flag: https://github.com/antirez/ds4#reducing-heat-power-usage-and...

Would the new upcoming AMD AI ryzen halo desktop be a better value offer? or dgx spark?

You would have to get a third party reseller/scalper or refurbished mac mini to get 64gb of ram ever since apple stopped selling it.

I just checked apple's website and configured them:

Mac Studio: Ships: 16–18 weeks

Mac mini: Ships: 10–12 weeks

I'm running an M5 Max 128GB with Qwen 3.6 and unreal engine in the background and it seems to be ok for me. Quite a power drain if it's not plugged in but I haven't seen any thermal issues.

Apple does not currently sell a Mac Mini with 64GB RAM.

Can you define "serious programming"? Because I use it to implement things I COULD go and figure out like algorithms or test generation or evaluations etc, the "serious" programming I tend to do myself. That is what I'm paid for.

Don't forget that your OLED screen will start to color-shift as the heat cooks the panel!

They really need to release those updated Studios already.

Yes, it gets really hot really fast.

As much as I was tempted to use it on longer projects, I had some reservations about whether it would put too much strain on my MacBook.

> If you want to run Qwen3.6 27B / 35B at its best, get a MacMini M4 with 64GB of RAM and put it in the basement - or at least a few meters from your desk.

Can confirm this works rather well, most things that integrate with LLMs, (agents, editors), support providing a remote (LAN) URL for Ollama, LM Studio etc.

But you do need a fast LAN connection, otherwise working with agents will be a pain.

A local model on my m2 made me come to that conclusion but I definitely was having “that config is $2k more” regret. Thanks for posting this!

This. Do consider local LLMs, but set aside a dedicated machine for it. Connect via VPN or reverse proxy. If it's not a Mac them I'd also put a server distro on it. No need for a desktop environment, save your RAM.

If you want to do coding with a local LLM your best bet is a 6 year old Nvidia 3090 which is substantially more powerful than the highest end overhyped Apple product for 1/5th the price.

TBF, I just recently picked up this same model, and it's reminding me of the last gen Intel i9 MBP. Just visiting any non-basic website spins up the fans and battery life isn't great either. Yes, this thing is fast, but damn it gets hot just using it for normal tasks.

Still, I don't agree. I think this machine is meant to use local models. You just have to wear pants if you want to keep it directly on your lap. I rarely use it that way anyway. I prefer it plugged into an external display and comfortably sitting on a laptop stand.

I am considering getting something like NVIDIA's RTX Spark when it comes out, though even that will be limited to 128GB.

Today the Mini tops out at 48GB. Gotta go to the Studio to get 64GB.

What sort of M5 are you running? A max? MacMini's don't offer max CPUs.

Are you sure you're running it with MLX?

Also look into buying the Mac mini refurbished from Apple. They come almost brand new, same warranty and you save money.

What kind of speed in tk/s do you get with the MacBook?

With 128 you can run 122b ;)

Same. And your M5 has acceleration that I don’t with my M3 max. I can’t do anything local it gets hotter than an Intel Mac trying to run docker from back in the day.

Get an OEM Spark instead, mine are silent and can fit 2 qwen/gemma at 8bit or give you room for a bunch of other, smaller models (embed,rerank,etc)

why not buy one of those "a.i" desktop kits being sold by Nvidia/AMD and just connect to them via network ?

to me that's cheaper than paying an LLM provider such as Anthropic spreading FUD around open weight models & more sustainable too.

>If you want to run Qwen3.6 27B / 35B at its best, get a MacMini M4 with 64GB of RAM and put it in the basement

Im sorry, but its time to start calling Apple sycophants out. Stop trying to push your tech jewelry on other people. You only buy those computers because they are Apple, you don't know anything about computing or running LLMs, you don't do any real work, so you should probably not give advice on what to buy.

A single 3090 will run Qwen3.6 27b fine, and its VRAM speed is twice of what the best Mac has. And the build will be cheaper. Decent CPU/Motherboard, 32gb of DDR4 ram, an SSD and a Single 3090 should run max about $4grand. Mac m4 mini is 6grand.

Then, when gpu prices come down (or you find one on a deal), you can upgrade the card, or stick a second one, and benefit from more speed. You can't do that with the trash Apple produces.

Flag me if you want, I don't care. Its embarrasing for the tech community to give advice this bad.