Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB vs NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell
In short
Both have 96 GB of memory for models; the Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB has 819 GB/s of bandwidth and the NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell 1,792 GB/s. At 128k context the NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell runs 39 of the models we track fully in memory and the Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB 37; only the NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell holds Qwen 3.8 Flash Next. On the models both run fully in memory, the NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell is about 2.1× as fast as the Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB (estimated, median across models). In the US the Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB costs $4,399 at eBay and the NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell $16,000 at eBay: the Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB is $11,601 cheaper.
Updated . Speeds are estimates; how they are worked out.
Specifications
| Spec | Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB | NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell |
|---|---|---|
| Chip | Apple M3 Ultra (80-core GPU) | – |
| Memory bus | 1024-bit | 512-bit |
| Memory bandwidth | 819 GB/s | 1,792 GB/s |
| FP16 compute | 28 TFLOPS | 504 TFLOPS |
| Software | Metal | CUDA |
| Unified memory | 96 GB | – |
| GPU can use by default | 72 GB | – |
| GPU can use, tuned | 88 GB | – |
| Operating system | macos | – |
| Processor | M3 Ultra 32-core | – |
| Storage | 1000 GB | – |
| GPU | – | RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell |
| Memory | – | 96 GB GDDR7 |
| Board power | – | 600 W |
| PCIe generation | – | Gen 5 |
| PCIe lanes | – | x16 |
What each runs
Estimated decode speed with the most precise quant that fits each one est.
| Model | Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB | NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell |
|---|---|---|
| Qwen 3.8 Flash Next | won't run | 20tok/sUD-Q3_K_XL |
| Qwen 3.8 27B | 14tok/sQ8_0 | 29tok/sQ8_0 |
| Qwen 3.5 122B-A10B | 41tok/sQ3_K_M | 62tok/sQ5_K_M |
| Qwen 3.6 27B | 14tok/sQ8_0 | 30tok/sQ8_0 |
| Qwen3 Coder Next | 49tok/sQ6_K | 90tok/sQ8_0 |
| Nemotron 3 Super 120B-A12B | 44tok/sUD-Q3_K_M | 72tok/sUD-Q4_K_M |
| gpt-oss 120B | 40tok/sMXFP4 | 84tok/sMXFP4 |
| Gemma 4 31B | 12tok/sQ8_0 | 25tok/sQ8_0 |
| Mistral Small 4 119B | 51tok/sUD-Q3_K_M | 80tok/sUD-Q5_K_M |
| Qwen 3.6 35B-A3B | 55tok/sQ8_0 | 114tok/sQ8_0 |
| Qwen 3.5 27B | 14tok/sQ8_0 | 30tok/sQ8_0 |
| Gemma 4 26B-A4B | 45tok/sQ8_0 | 95tok/sQ8_0 |
| GLM 4.5 Air | 10tok/sQ2_K | 19tok/sQ4_K_M |
| Qwen3 Next 80B-A3B | 56tok/sQ6_K | 104tok/sQ8_0 |
| Qwen 3.5 35B-A3B | 55tok/sQ8_0 | 114tok/sQ8_0 |
| GLM 4.7 Flash | 26tok/sQ8_0 | 54tok/sQ8_0 |
| Devstral Small 2 24B | 11tok/sQ8_0 | 24tok/sQ8_0 |
| Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B-A3B | 76tok/sUD-Q6_K_XL | 160tok/sUD-Q6_K_XL |
| Kimi Linear 48B-A3B | 75tok/sQ8_0 | 155tok/sQ8_0 |
| gpt-oss 20B | 57tok/sMXFP4 | 118tok/sMXFP4 |
| Qwen3 Coder 30B-A3B | 20tok/sQ8_0 | 42tok/sQ8_0 |
| Qwen3 32B | 8tok/sQ8_0 | 16tok/sQ8_0 |
| Gemma 4 12B | 35tok/sQ8_0 | 73tok/sQ8_0 |
| Qwen 3.5 9B | 38tok/sQ8_0 | 80tok/sQ8_0 |
| Gemma 3 27B | 13tok/sQ8_0 | 28tok/sQ8_0 |
| Mistral Small 3.2 24B | 11tok/sQ8_0 | 24tok/sQ8_0 |
| DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 32B | 8tok/sQ8_0 | 16tok/sQ8_0 |
| Llama 3.3 70B | won't run | 12tok/sQ5_K_M |
| Ministral 3 14B | 15tok/sQ8_0 | 31tok/sQ8_0 |
| Qwen3 14B | 14tok/sQ8_0 | 30tok/sQ8_0 |
| DeepSeek R1 0528 Qwen3 8B | 19tok/sQ8_0 | 40tok/sQ8_0 |
| Qwen3 8B | 19tok/sQ8_0 | 40tok/sQ8_0 |
| Phi-4 14B | 13tok/sQ8_0 | 26tok/sQ8_0 |
| Qwen 3.5 4B | 60tok/sQ8_0 | 126tok/sQ8_0 |
| Ministral 3 8B | 20tok/sQ8_0 | 41tok/sQ8_0 |
| Granite 4.2 8B | 17tok/sQ8_0 | 36tok/sQ8_0 |
| Gemma 4 E4B | 44tok/sQ8_0 | 93tok/sQ8_0 |
| LFM2.5 8B-A1B | 43tok/sQ8_0 | 89tok/sQ8_0 |
| Llama 3.1 8B | 22tok/sQ6_K | 47tok/sQ6_K |
| DeepSeek V4 Flash | won't run | offload |
| GLM 5.3 Flash | won't run | offload |
| MiniMax M2.7 | won't run | offload |
Questions
- Which is better for local AI, the Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB or the NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell?
- Choose the NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell to run bigger models. Choose the NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell for speed. Choose the Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB to spend less.
- Which can run bigger models, the Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB or the NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell?
- At 128k context the NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell runs 39 of the models we track fully in memory and the Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB 37; only the NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell holds Qwen 3.8 Flash Next.
- Which is faster for local AI, the Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB or the NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell?
- On the models both run fully in memory, the NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell is about 2.1× as fast as the Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB (estimated, median across models).
- What is the price difference between the Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB and the NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell?
- In the US the Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB costs $4,399 at eBay and the NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell $16,000 at eBay: the Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB is $11,601 cheaper.
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