GPU comparison
MacBook Air/Pro M5 (32GB) vs NVIDIA RTX 4070 (12GB) for local LLMs
How the two stack up for running open-source LLMs locally — memory, bandwidth, price, and how many of the 64 tracked models each one can run.
| MacBook Air/Pro M5 (32GB) | NVIDIA RTX 4070 (12GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Memory | 32.0 GB | 12.0 GB |
| Bandwidth | 153 GB/s | 504 GB/s |
| Price (approx) | $1,499 | $549 |
| LLMs it runs | 47 of 64 | 27 of 64 |
| Best model it runs | Qwen3.8 27B · 9–13 tok/s | Devstral Small 2 24B · 35–53 tok/s |
The MacBook Air/Pro M5 (32GB) runs 20 more of the tracked models (47 vs 27), thanks to its 32.0 GB of memory. The NVIDIA RTX 4070 (12GB) has more memory bandwidth (504 GB/s), so it generates tokens faster at the same model and quant.