GPU comparison
MacBook Air/Pro M5 (32GB) vs NVIDIA RTX 5060 (8GB) 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 5060 (8GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Memory | 32.0 GB | 8.0 GB |
| Bandwidth | 153 GB/s | 448 GB/s |
| Price (approx) | $1,499 | $449 |
| LLMs it runs | 47 of 64 | 22 of 64 |
| Best model it runs | Qwen3.8 27B · 9–13 tok/s | Gemma 4 12B · 55–83 tok/s |
The MacBook Air/Pro M5 (32GB) runs 25 more of the tracked models (47 vs 22), thanks to its 32.0 GB of memory. The NVIDIA RTX 5060 (8GB) has more memory bandwidth (448 GB/s), so it generates tokens faster at the same model and quant.