Mac mini M4 16GB vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB
In short
Both have 16 GB of memory for models; the Mac mini M4 16GB has 120 GB/s of bandwidth and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB 288 GB/s. At 8k context the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB runs 16 of the models we track fully in memory and the Mac mini M4 16GB 13; only the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB holds Devstral Small 2 24B. On the models both run fully in memory, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB is about 2.3× as fast as the Mac mini M4 16GB (estimated, median across models). In the UK the Mac mini M4 16GB costs £1,000 at eBay and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB £977 at Amazon: the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB is £23 cheaper.
Updated . Speeds are estimates; how they are worked out.
Specifications
| Spec | Mac mini M4 16GB | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB |
|---|---|---|
| Chip | Apple M4 (10-core GPU) | – |
| Memory bus | 128-bit | 128-bit |
| Memory bandwidth | 120 GB/s | 288 GB/s |
| FP16 compute | 3.76 TFLOPS | 44 TFLOPS |
| Software | Metal | CUDA |
| Unified memory | 16 GB | – |
| GPU can use by default | 10.7 GB | – |
| GPU can use, tuned | 10.666666666666666 GB | – |
| Operating system | macos | – |
| Processor | M4 10-core | – |
| Storage | 256 GB | – |
| GPU | – | GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB |
| Memory | – | 16 GB GDDR6 |
| Board power | – | 165 W |
| PCIe generation | – | Gen 4 |
| PCIe lanes | – | x8 |
What each runs
Estimated decode speed with the most precise quant that fits each one est.
| Model | Mac mini M4 16GB | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB |
|---|---|---|
| Devstral Small 2 24B | won't run | 11tok/sQ4_K_M |
| gpt-oss 20B | won't run | 41tok/sMXFP4 |
| Gemma 4 12B | 8tok/sQ6_K | 14tok/sQ8_0 |
| Qwen 3.5 9B | 8tok/sQ8_0 | 18tok/sQ8_0 |
| Mistral Small 3.2 24B | won't run | 11tok/sQ4_K_M |
| Ministral 3 14B | 8tok/sQ4_K_M | 11tok/sQ8_0 |
| Qwen3 14B | 8tok/sQ4_K_M | 13tok/sQ6_K |
| DeepSeek R1 0528 Qwen3 8B | 8tok/sQ8_0 | 18tok/sQ8_0 |
| Qwen3 8B | 8tok/sQ8_0 | 18tok/sQ8_0 |
| Phi-4 14B | 7tok/sQ4_K_M | 13tok/sQ6_K |
| Qwen 3.5 4B | 16tok/sQ8_0 | 37tok/sQ8_0 |
| Ministral 3 8B | 8tok/sQ8_0 | 18tok/sQ8_0 |
| Granite 4.2 8B | 7tok/sQ8_0 | 17tok/sQ8_0 |
| Gemma 4 E4B | 9tok/sQ8_0 | 21tok/sQ8_0 |
| LFM2.5 8B-A1B | 32tok/sQ8_0 | 73tok/sQ8_0 |
| Llama 3.1 8B | 10tok/sQ6_K | 23tok/sQ6_K |
| Qwen 3.8 27B | won't run | offload |
| Qwen 3.5 122B-A10B | won't run | offload |
| Qwen 3.6 27B | won't run | offload |
| Gemma 4 31B | won't run | offload |
| Mistral Small 4 119B | won't run | offload |
| Qwen 3.5 27B | won't run | offload |
| Qwen 3.6 35B-A3B | won't run | offload |
| Gemma 4 26B-A4B | won't run | offload |
| GLM 4.7 Flash | won't run | offload |
| Qwen 3.5 35B-A3B | won't run | offload |
| Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B-A3B | won't run | offload |
| Kimi Linear 48B-A3B | won't run | offload |
| Qwen3 Coder 30B-A3B | won't run | offload |
| Qwen3 32B | won't run | offload |
| DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 32B | won't run | offload |
| Gemma 3 27B | won't run | 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 |
| Qwen3 Coder Next | won't run | won't run |
| gpt-oss 120B | won't run | won't run |
| GLM 4.5 Air | won't run | won't run |
| Qwen3 Next 80B-A3B | won't run | won't run |
| Llama 3.3 70B | won't run | won't run |
Questions
- Which is better for local AI, the Mac mini M4 16GB or the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB?
- Choose the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB to run bigger models. Choose the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB for speed. Choose the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB to spend less.
- Which can run bigger models, the Mac mini M4 16GB or the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB?
- At 8k context the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB runs 16 of the models we track fully in memory and the Mac mini M4 16GB 13; only the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB holds Devstral Small 2 24B.
- Which is faster for local AI, the Mac mini M4 16GB or the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB?
- On the models both run fully in memory, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB is about 2.3× as fast as the Mac mini M4 16GB (estimated, median across models).
- What is the price difference between the Mac mini M4 16GB and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB?
- In the UK the Mac mini M4 16GB costs £1,000 at eBay and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB £977 at Amazon: the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB is £23 cheaper.
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