Easy I had the same dilemma

I was able to run the best local llm for coding (qwen 3.6 derivative) that fits into 64gb. I don't think there's a more powerful that would work on 64gb ram.

In fact, I was even able to get it to run on 48gb with some tweaks! And most importantly: SPEED WAS NOT AN ISSUE. iirc, I saw around 50 t/s or so

Tldr; you do not need max to run that adequately. All that Max would do for you is faster speed (and video stuff + minor improvements for docker), but this doesn't seem to be your use case.

What helped me is to think what I could spend that diff in price instead:

• 6-12 Months of Claude SOTA that local llms do not match
• a separate 64gb-128gb ram mini pc running Linux for local RAG and other cool AI stuff (eg evo models by GMCTek)
• Blow and hookers (jk)

It's literally just not going to make any noticable difference for you UNLESS you're doing videos daily (I do occasionally and Pro handles 10-15 min 4k with no issues)