Buy a box, or rent one?
Prices checked
14 machines people buy to run open models, each against the cheapest VPS with as much usable memory, checked .
Every machine, against a VPS
all modelsevery model in the class fits some fit– none fit
| Machine | Price | Memory · usable | Bandwidth | Up to 4B | 7–9B | 12–15B | 24–32B | 70B+ | Mixture-of-experts | VPS months |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Raspberry Pi 5 (16 GB)~8 W | $305approx. | 16 GB · 14.5 GB | 17 GB/s | – | – | 34 moLeaseweb · $9.04/mo | ||||
| GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB (card only)~180 W | $456approx. | 16 GB · 15.5 GB | 448 GB/s | – | – | 50 moLeaseweb · $9.04/mo | ||||
| Mac mini (M6, 16 GB)~35 W | $899vendor price | 16 GB · 12 GB | 153 GB/s | – | – | – | 99 moLeaseweb · $9.04/mo | |||
| GeForce RTX 5070 Ti 16 GB (card only)~300 W | $1,190approx. | 16 GB · 15.5 GB | 896 GB/s | – | – | 10+ yrsLeaseweb · $9.04/mo | ||||
| Mac mini (M6, 32 GB)~35 W | $1,299base + upgrade | 32 GB · 24 GB | 153 GB/s | – | 92 moLeaseweb · $14.07/mo | |||||
| GeForce RTX 5080 16 GB (card only)~360 W | $1,650approx. | 16 GB · 15.5 GB | 960 GB/s | – | – | 10+ yrsLeaseweb · $9.04/mo | ||||
| Mac mini (M5 Pro, 24 GB)~50 W | $1,699vendor price | 24 GB · 18 GB | 307 GB/s | – | 10+ yrsLeaseweb · $14.07/mo | |||||
| Framework Desktop (Ryzen AI Max+ 395, 64 GB)~120 W | $1,959approx. | 64 GB · 48 GB | 256 GB/s | 75 moLeaseweb · $26.13/mo | ||||||
| Mac mini (M5 Pro, 64 GB)~55 W | $2,299base + upgrade | 64 GB · 48 GB | 307 GB/s | 88 moLeaseweb · $26.13/mo | ||||||
| Mac Studio (M5 Max, 36 GB)~70 W | $2,499vendor price | 36 GB · 27 GB | 460 GB/s | – | 96 moLeaseweb · $26.13/mo | |||||
| GeForce RTX 5090 32 GB (card only)~575 W | $3,440approx. | 32 GB · 31.5 GB | 1792 GB/s | – | 10+ yrsLeaseweb · $26.13/mo | |||||
| Framework Desktop (Ryzen AI Max+ 395, 128 GB)~120 W | $3,449approx. | 128 GB · 96 GB | 256 GB/s | 53 moLeaseweb · $65.69/mo | ||||||
| NVIDIA DGX Spark (128 GB)~240 W | $4,699approx. | 128 GB · 96 GB | 273 GB/s | 72 moLeaseweb · $65.69/mo | ||||||
| Mac Studio (M5 Ultra, 96 GB)~110 W | $5,499vendor price | 96 GB · 72 GB | 1200 GB/s | 84 moLeaseweb · $65.69/mo |
How we count
Local hardware wins on speed, with GPU-class memory bandwidth; a VPS wins on upfront cost and uptime. “VPS months” is the machine's price divided by the cheapest VPS with at least its usable memory and a disk included.
Memory, bandwidth and power come from the vendors' spec pages. Hardware prices were last checked 26 Oct 2026 and refresh weekly. Apple prices are read from the Apple Store before tax, with a set amount added for memory upgrades (marked base + upgrade); vendors that block automated reads are looked up by search and marked approximate. Those follow street prices, which in 2026 sit far above the makers' own because of memory shortages.
Usable memory: unified-memory machines (Apple, Strix Halo, DGX Spark) give the GPU about 75% of RAM by default; discrete cards lose about 0.5 GB to the driver; CPU-only boards keep 1.5 GB for the OS. Weights and KV cache must fit in what is left.
Why bandwidth decides speed: generating a token reads every active weight once. An RTX 5090 at 1.8 TB/s streams an 8B Q4 model about 100 times faster than a 4-vCPU VPS; a Mac mini sits in between. The speed for each model is on its model page.
Memory-driven price rises have pushed GPUs 40 to 135% above their makers' prices and doubled the Raspberry Pi 5. Every model page has a calculator, so you can plug in the price you can actually get.