Mini PC for local LLMs in 2026 (terminalbytes.com)

As somebody that has a vague interest in running local LLMs… they day i decide to burn cash on hardware I might as well go all-in a get either a 128gb mac studio or an nvidia dgx spark (or some other equivalent gb10-based system).

The 64gb mac mini is also interesting, if anything because it is very likely to hold most of its value when reselling.

I’m keeping an eye on the next apple hardware refreshes, particularly for mac minis and mac studios.

Currently NVidia's mini PC, or the version licensed to Asus, is one of the few that I can actually buy with Linux pre-installed with a fully OEM supported version.

One would expect that by now buying desktop class computers on shops with a Linux experience would be rather common.

Geekcom devices that it advertises as Linux ready, are actually sold with Windows pre-installed.

I guess they mean WSL ready.

Could we post articles that are obviously written by an LLM with a flair?

"Local inference is rarely cheaper if you’re being honest with yourself about how much you actually use it."

Sorry, but this is not even close to "being honest", it's bad math. That calculation assumes you do nothing with the computer other than local inference.

“What’s the memory bandwidth (GB/s) of the device holding the model weights?”

Isn’t the recommended option going to be dog slow at 256 GB/s.

> 128GB Ryzen AI MAX+ 395, listed at $2,099.

Wasn‘t that a discounted price?

> The 256 GB/s number is real, but for context, an Apple M5 Ultra hits ~800 GB/s on its unified memory

The M5 Ultra has not been even announced.

This article appears to be predominately or entirely LLM-produced with little to no human review, and contains numerous material and misinforming errors.

It also omits serious contenders that's worth at least comparing, like the DGX Spark.

I got a well used HP Z840 with 256GB ECC DDR4 and twin Xeons ca. 2014. Then I slapped 2 AMD V640 32GB passively cooled GPUs in it with some 3D printed fan shrouds and 2 1U 15k rpm fans each. They just fit! I needed to order a quad 8pin power cable, the standard configuration has 3 6pin cables--but there's unused pins on the GPU power rail, and there are aftermarket suppliers.

72 Xeon cores

256GB ECC DDR4

64GB VRAM

$2200 total

I run it on a 20A 240V outlet to make sure the power supply can deliver enough watts, but so far it's working pretty well. The eWaste LLM rig is probably not as good value for money as a new machine, but it gets the job done cheaper (for now).

EDIT: IIRC this approach gets me more VRAM bandwidth than Strix Halo at the cost of less addressable GBs (but a lot more total system RAM), but I figured with CPU offloading that might make up for it?

ALSO EDIT: Note you can get a 128GB Strix Halo motherboard minus power supply, fans, case, etc from Framework for $2200.. that could work if you have some parts lying around.

This article was authored by AI. It contains hallucinated info from compilations of random reddit threads.

I bought a 32G MacMini over two years ago and it has been great for experimenting with local models, and now is even useful for local coding (at a slow speed!) with models supporting large context sizes.

With the current extreme RAM shortage I deeply regret not buying a 64G MacMini a few months ago.

I bet a zillion people feel the same way.

Good research, but man do I feel the LLM vibe shining through. That sustained information density...

There's some mention of Apple silicon here but it's worth expanding upon. Macs have a unified memory architecture. So if you have a Mac with 64GB of memory then the GPU can use all of that. This is potentially quite useful but Apple silicon in general is limited by memory bandwidth. For comparison, a 5090 is 1792GB/s. Here are some examples:

- GMKTek EVO-X2: 120GB/s reads, 212GB/s writes

- NVidia DGX Spark 273GB/s

- Mac Mini M4 120GB/s but only $600+

- Mac Mini w/ M4 Pro 273GB/s ($2199 for 64GB)

- Mac Studio M4 Max 410GB/s ($3500 for 128GB)

- Mac Studio M3 Ultra 819GB/s ($5500 for 96GB)

- Macbook Pro 16" with M5 Pro 64GB 307GB/s ($3300)

- Macbook Pro 16" with M5 Max 128GB 460GB/s ($5399)

Sadly, Apple discontinued the 512GB Mac Studio. Mac Studios are a little long in the tooth now and due for an upgrade this year. I suspect that prices will be a lot higher given the RAM prices but we'll see.

Just learn to use cloud API AI. Gwen and Deepseek API are dirt cheap enough for you to play with for 2 years intensively and still cheaper than buying these mini PCs. By then, Chinese ram and GPU production would have bring down all the prices. And if you are lucky a newer faster and smaller LLM and even recession to put you in a better position to buy these mini PCs at fraction of a cost now.