Mac mini M4 Pro 64GB vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090
For running models locally, priced in Germany. At 8k context the first runs 64 models fully in memory, the second 56.
In short
The Mac mini M4 Pro 64GB has more memory for models: 64 GB against 24 GB. At 8k context the Mac mini M4 Pro 64GB runs 64 of the models we track fully in memory and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 56; only the Mac mini M4 Pro 64GB holds Qwen 3.5 122B-A10B. On the models both run fully in memory, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 is about 3.5× as fast as the Mac mini M4 Pro 64GB (estimated, median across models). In Germany the Mac mini M4 Pro 64GB costs 3.199 € at eBay (used) and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 3.955 € at eBay: the Mac mini M4 Pro 64GB is 756 € cheaper.
Updated . Speeds are estimates; how they are worked out.
Specifications
| Spec | Mac mini M4 Pro 64GB | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 |
|---|---|---|
| Chip | Apple M4 Pro (20-core GPU) | – |
| Memory bus | 256-bit | 384-bit |
| Memory bandwidth | 273 GB/s | 1,008 GB/s |
| FP16 compute | 8.08 TFLOPS | 165 TFLOPS |
| Software | Metal | CUDA |
| Unified memory | 64 GB | – |
| GPU can use by default | 48 GB | – |
| GPU can use, tuned | 56 GB | – |
| Operating system | macos | – |
| Processor | M4 Pro 14-core | – |
| Storage | 1000 GB | – |
| GPU | – | GeForce RTX 4090 |
| Memory | – | 24 GB GDDR6X |
| Board power | – | 450 W |
| PCIe generation | – | Gen 4 |
| PCIe lanes | – | x16 |
What each runs
Estimated decode speed with the most precise quant that fits each one est.
| Model | Mac mini M4 Pro 64GB | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 |
|---|---|---|
| Qwen 3.8 27B | 6tok/sQ8_0 | 28tok/sUD-Q6_K |
| Qwen 3.5 122B-A10B | 29tok/sUD-Q2_K_XL | offload |
| Qwen 3.6 27B | 6tok/sQ8_0 | 27tok/sQ6_K |
| Qwen3 Coder Next | 40tok/sQ4_K_M | offload |
| Gemma 4 31B | 5tok/sQ8_0 | 27tok/sQ5_K_M |
| Mistral Small 4 119B | 42tok/sUD-Q2_K_XL | offload |
| Qwen 3.6 35B-A3B | 32tok/sQ8_0 | 179tok/sQ4_K_M |
| Qwen 3.5 27B | 6tok/sQ8_0 | 27tok/sQ6_K |
| Gemma 4 26B-A4B | 23tok/sQ8_0 | 95tok/sUD-Q6_K |
| GLM 4.5 Air | 13tok/sQ2_K | offload |
| Qwen3 Next 80B-A3B | 52tok/sQ4_K_M | offload |
| Qwen 3.5 35B-A3B | 32tok/sQ8_0 | 181tok/sQ4_K_M |
| GLM 4.7 Flash | 19tok/sQ8_0 | 94tok/sQ5_K_M |
| Devstral Small 2 24B | 7tok/sQ8_0 | 30tok/sQ6_K |
| Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B-A3B | 31tok/sUD-Q6_K_XL | 163tok/sMXFP4 |
| Kimi Linear 48B-A3B | 41tok/sQ6_K | offload |
| gpt-oss 20B | 40tok/sMXFP4 | 142tok/sMXFP4 |
| Qwen3 Coder 30B-A3B | 27tok/sQ8_0 | 128tok/sQ5_K_M |
| Qwen3 32B | 5tok/sQ8_0 | 29tok/sQ4_K_M |
| Gemma 4 12B | 14tok/sQ8_0 | 48tok/sQ8_0 |
| Qwen 3.5 9B | 18tok/sQ8_0 | 64tok/sQ8_0 |
| Mistral Small 3.2 24B | 7tok/sQ8_0 | 30tok/sQ6_K |
| Gemma 3 27B | 6tok/sQ8_0 | 27tok/sQ6_K |
| DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 32B | 5tok/sQ8_0 | 28tok/sQ4_K_M |
| Llama 3.3 70B | 4tok/sQ4_K_M | offload |
| Ministral 3 14B | 11tok/sQ8_0 | 40tok/sQ8_0 |
| Qwen3 14B | 10tok/sQ8_0 | 37tok/sQ8_0 |
| DeepSeek R1 0528 Qwen3 8B | 18tok/sQ8_0 | 63tok/sQ8_0 |
| Qwen3 8B | 18tok/sQ8_0 | 63tok/sQ8_0 |
| Phi-4 14B | 10tok/sQ8_0 | 36tok/sQ8_0 |
| Qwen 3.5 4B | 37tok/sQ8_0 | 130tok/sQ8_0 |
| Ministral 3 8B | 17tok/sQ8_0 | 62tok/sQ8_0 |
| Granite 4.2 8B | 17tok/sQ8_0 | 59tok/sQ8_0 |
| Gemma 4 E4B | 21tok/sQ8_0 | 74tok/sQ8_0 |
| LFM2.5 8B-A1B | 73tok/sQ8_0 | 256tok/sQ8_0 |
| Llama 3.1 8B | 23tok/sQ6_K | 82tok/sQ6_K |
| Qwen2.5 0.5B | 281tok/sQ8_0 | 989tok/sQ8_0 |
| Qwen3.5 0.8B | 191tok/sQ8_0 | 671tok/sQ8_0 |
| Qwen3.5 2B | 114tok/sQ5_K_M | 402tok/sQ5_K_M |
| DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B | 83tok/sQ8_0 | 294tok/sQ8_0 |
| MiniCPM5 2B | 59tok/sQ8_0 | 206tok/sQ8_0 |
| LFM2.5 2.6B | 53tok/sQ8_0 | 185tok/sQ8_0 |
| LFM2.5 VL 3B | 53tok/sQ8_0 | 185tok/sQ8_0 |
| Spark X2.5 4B | 52tok/smlx-4bit | 184tok/smlx-4bit |
| granite vision 4.1 4b | 41tok/sQ8_0 | 146tok/sQ8_0 |
| granite 4.2 3b | 39tok/sQ8_0 | 137tok/sQ8_0 |
| LFM2.5 24B A2B | 38tok/sQ8_0 | 154tok/sQ6_K |
| Mellum2.1 12B A2.5B Thinking | 38tok/sQ8_0 | 133tok/sQ8_0 |
| Kimi VL A3B Thinking 2506 | 32tok/sQ8_0 | 112tok/sQ8_0 |
| Kimi VL A3B | 30tok/smlx-8bit | 107tok/smlx-8bit |
| DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 7B | 21tok/sQ8_0 | 73tok/sQ8_0 |
| GLM 4 9B 0414 | 21tok/smlx-5bit | 73tok/smlx-5bit |
| DeepSeek R1 Distill Llama 8B | 19tok/sQ8_0 | 65tok/sQ8_0 |
| Ministral 3 8B Reasoning 2512 | 17tok/sQ8_0 | 62tok/sQ8_0 |
| GLM 4.6V Flash | 17tok/sQ8_0 | 61tok/sQ8_0 |
| GLM 4.1V 9B Thinking | 15tok/smlx-8bit | 52tok/smlx-8bit |
| DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 14B | 10tok/sQ8_0 | 36tok/sQ8_0 |
| Qwen3.8 27B OBLITERATED | 8tok/smlx-4bit | 29tok/smlx-4bit |
| Devstral Small 2507 | 7tok/sQ8_0 | 35tok/sQ5_K_M |
| Magistral Small 2506 | 7tok/sQ8_0 | 30tok/sQ6_K |
| Magistral Small 2507 | 7tok/sQ8_0 | 35tok/sQ5_K_M |
| Magistral Small 2509 | 7tok/sQ8_0 | 35tok/sQ5_K_M |
| granite 4.2 30b | 5tok/sQ8_0 | 27tok/sQ5_K_M |
| DeepSeek R1 Distill Llama 70B | 4tok/sQ4_K_M | offload |
| DeepSeek V4 Flash | won't run | won't run |
| GLM 5.3 Flash | won't run | won't run |
| Qwen 3.8 Flash Next | won't run | won't run |
| MiniMax M2.7 | won't run | won't run |
| Nemotron 3 Super 120B-A12B | won't run | won't run |
| gpt-oss 120B | won't run | won't run |
| DeepSeek R1 | won't run | won't run |
| DeepSeek R1 0528 | won't run | won't run |
| DeepSeek R1 Zero | won't run | won't run |
| DeepSeek V3 0324 | won't run | won't run |
| DeepSeek V3.1 | won't run | won't run |
| DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus | won't run | won't run |
| DeepSeek V3.2 | won't run | won't run |
| DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731 | won't run | won't run |
| DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp | won't run | won't run |
| Devstral 2 123B Instruct 2512 | won't run | won't run |
| GLM 4.5V | won't run | won't run |
| GLM 4.6 | won't run | won't run |
| GLM 4.6V | won't run | won't run |
| GLM 4.7 | won't run | won't run |
| GLM 5.1 | won't run | won't run |
| GLM 5.2 | won't run | won't run |
| GLM 5.3 | won't run | won't run |
| Kimi Dev 72B | won't run | won't run |
| Kimi K2 | won't run | won't run |
| Kimi K2 Instruct 0905 | won't run | won't run |
| Kimi K2 Thinking | won't run | won't run |
| Kimi K2.5 | won't run | won't run |
| MiniMax M2 | won't run | won't run |
| MiniMax M2.1 | won't run | won't run |
| MiniMax M2.5 | won't run | won't run |
| MiniMax M3 | won't run | won't run |
| Mistral Medium 3.5 128B | won't run | won't run |
Questions
- Which is better for local AI, the Mac mini M4 Pro 64GB or the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090?
- Choose the Mac mini M4 Pro 64GB to run bigger models. Choose the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 for speed. Choose the Mac mini M4 Pro 64GB to spend less.
- Which can run bigger models, the Mac mini M4 Pro 64GB or the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090?
- At 8k context the Mac mini M4 Pro 64GB runs 64 of the models we track fully in memory and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 56; only the Mac mini M4 Pro 64GB holds Qwen 3.5 122B-A10B.
- Which is faster for local AI, the Mac mini M4 Pro 64GB or the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090?
- On the models both run fully in memory, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 is about 3.5× as fast as the Mac mini M4 Pro 64GB (estimated, median across models).
- What is the price difference between the Mac mini M4 Pro 64GB and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090?
- In Germany the Mac mini M4 Pro 64GB costs 3.199 € at eBay (used) and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 3.955 € at eBay: the Mac mini M4 Pro 64GB is 756 € cheaper.
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