Buy a box, or rent one?
14 reference machines people actually buy to run open models, against the cheapest VPS in the index with the same usable memory and a disk included. Local hardware wins on speed (GPU-class bandwidth); a VPS wins on upfront cost and uptime. Prices were last checked on 7 Sept 2026 and refresh weekly (September 2026 edition).
Reference machines for running open models locally. Memory, bandwidth and power come from vendor spec pages. Prices are refreshed weekly by scripts/update-hardware.ts: Apple prices are read from the Apple Store page (list price before tax; BTO memory upgrades add a curated delta, marked 'derived'); vendors that block automated fetches are checked through a web-search lookup and marked 'approximate'. Those follow street prices, which in 2026 sit far above MSRP because of memory shortages. Prices are editable on the page, so treat them as starting points.
| 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) Raspberry Pi · sbc · ~8 W | $305street, approx. · 7 Sept 2026 | 16 GB · 14.5 GB | 17 GB/s | – | – | 19 moHOSTKEY 16 GB · $16.15/mo | ||||
| GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB (card only) NVIDIA · card only · ~180 W | $800street, approx. · 7 Sept 2026 | 16 GB · 15.5 GB | 448 GB/s | – | – | 50 moHOSTKEY 16 GB · $16.15/mo | ||||
| Mac mini (M6, 16 GB) Apple · desktop · ~35 W | $899vendor list price · 7 Sept 2026 | 16 GB · 12 GB | 153 GB/s | – | – | – | 77 moHOSTKEY 12 GB · $11.70/mo | |||
| GeForce RTX 5070 Ti 16 GB (card only) NVIDIA · card only · ~300 W | $1,200street, approx. · 7 Sept 2026 | 16 GB · 15.5 GB | 896 GB/s | – | – | 74 moHOSTKEY 16 GB · $16.15/mo | ||||
| Mac mini (M6, 32 GB) Apple · desktop · ~35 W | $1,299vendor base + upgrade · 7 Sept 2026 | 32 GB · 24 GB | 153 GB/s | – | 48 moOVHcloud 24 GB · $27.11/mo | |||||
| GeForce RTX 5080 16 GB (card only) NVIDIA · card only · ~360 W | $1,600street, approx. · 7 Sept 2026 | 16 GB · 15.5 GB | 960 GB/s | – | – | 99 moHOSTKEY 16 GB · $16.15/mo | ||||
| Framework Desktop (Ryzen AI Max+ 395, 64 GB) Framework · desktop · ~120 W | $1,659street, approx. · 7 Sept 2026 | 64 GB · 48 GB | 256 GB/s | 36 monetcup 64 GB · $46.49/mo | ||||||
| Mac mini (M5 Pro, 24 GB) Apple · desktop · ~50 W | $1,699vendor list price · 7 Sept 2026 | 24 GB · 18 GB | 307 GB/s | – | 63 moOVHcloud 24 GB · $27.11/mo | |||||
| Mac mini (M5 Pro, 64 GB) Apple · desktop · ~55 W | $2,299vendor base + upgrade · 7 Sept 2026 | 64 GB · 48 GB | 307 GB/s | 50 monetcup 64 GB · $46.49/mo | ||||||
| Mac Studio (M5 Max, 36 GB) Apple · desktop · ~70 W | $2,499vendor list price · 7 Sept 2026 | 36 GB · 27 GB | 460 GB/s | – | 80 monetcup 32 GB · $31.43/mo | |||||
| Framework Desktop (Ryzen AI Max+ 395, 128 GB) Framework · desktop · ~120 W | $3,149street, approx. · 7 Sept 2026 | 128 GB · 96 GB | 256 GB/s | 28 moContabo 96 GB · $114.24/mochecked 10 days ago | ||||||
| GeForce RTX 5090 32 GB (card only) NVIDIA · card only · ~575 W | $4,300street, approx. · 7 Sept 2026 | 32 GB · 31.5 GB | 1792 GB/s | – | 10+ yrsnetcup 32 GB · $31.43/mo | |||||
| NVIDIA DGX Spark (128 GB) NVIDIA · desktop · ~240 W | $4,699street, approx. · 7 Sept 2026 | 128 GB · 96 GB | 273 GB/s | 41 moContabo 96 GB · $114.24/mochecked 10 days ago | ||||||
| Mac Studio (M5 Ultra, 96 GB) Apple · desktop · ~110 W | $5,499vendor list price · 7 Sept 2026 | 96 GB · 72 GB | 1200 GB/s | 44 moCherry Servers 72 GB · $125.78/mo |
Usable memory
Unified-memory machines (Apple, Strix Halo, DGX Spark) give the GPU about 75% of RAM by default; discrete cards lose ~0.5 GB to the driver; CPU-only boards keep 1.5 GB for the OS. Weights + 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 ~100× faster than a 4-vCPU VPS; a Mac mini sits in between. Per-model bands are on each model page.
2026 caveat
Memory-driven price rises have pushed GPUs 40–135% above MSRP and doubled the Raspberry Pi 5. Every model page has an editable calculator, so you can plug in the price you can actually get.