GPU comparison
MacBook Air M4 (24GB) vs NVIDIA RTX 5080 (16GB) for local LLMs
How the two stack up for running open-source LLMs locally — memory, bandwidth, price, and how many of the 34 tracked models each one can run.
| MacBook Air M4 (24GB) | NVIDIA RTX 5080 (16GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Memory | 24.0 GB | 16.0 GB |
| Bandwidth | 120 GB/s | 960 GB/s |
| Price (approx) | $1,399 | $1,399 |
| LLMs it runs | 21 of 34 | 18 of 34 |
| Best model it runs | Gemma 4 31B · 5–7 tok/s | Gemma 4 26B-A4B (MoE) · 167–251 tok/s |
The MacBook Air M4 (24GB) runs 3 more of the tracked models (21 vs 18), thanks to its 24.0 GB of memory. The NVIDIA RTX 5080 (16GB) has more memory bandwidth (960 GB/s), so it generates tokens faster at the same model and quant.