Mac mini M4 16GB vs NVIDIA Tesla P40
For running models locally, priced in the UK. At 32k context the first runs 28 models fully in memory, the second 58.
In short
The NVIDIA Tesla P40 has more memory for models: 24 GB against 16 GB. At 32k context the NVIDIA Tesla P40 runs 58 of the models we track fully in memory and the Mac mini M4 16GB 28; only the NVIDIA Tesla P40 holds Qwen 3.8 27B. On the models both run fully in memory, the NVIDIA Tesla P40 is about 2.7× as fast as the Mac mini M4 16GB (estimated, median across models). In the UK the Mac mini M4 16GB costs £682 at Amazon and the NVIDIA Tesla P40 £261 at eBay (used): the NVIDIA Tesla P40 is £421 cheaper.
Updated . Speeds are estimates; how they are worked out.
Specifications
| Spec | Mac mini M4 16GB | NVIDIA Tesla P40 |
|---|---|---|
| Chip | Apple M4 (10-core GPU) | – |
| Memory bus | 128-bit | 384-bit |
| Memory bandwidth | 120 GB/s | 346 GB/s |
| FP16 compute | 3.76 TFLOPS | 11.8 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 | – | Tesla P40 |
| Memory | – | 24 GB GDDR5 |
| Board power | – | 250 W |
| PCIe generation | – | Gen 3 |
| PCIe lanes | – | x16 |
What each runs
Estimated decode speed with the most precise quant that fits each one est.
| Model | Mac mini M4 16GB | NVIDIA Tesla P40 |
|---|---|---|
| Qwen 3.8 27B | won't run | 9tok/sQ5_K_M |
| Qwen 3.6 27B | won't run | 10tok/sQ5_K_M |
| Gemma 4 31B | won't run | 10tok/sQ4_K_M |
| Qwen 3.5 27B | won't run | 10tok/sQ5_K_M |
| Qwen 3.6 35B-A3B | won't run | 50tok/sQ4_K_M |
| Gemma 4 26B-A4B | won't run | 29tok/sUD-Q6_K |
| Devstral Small 2 24B | won't run | 10tok/sQ5_K_M |
| GLM 4.7 Flash | won't run | 24tok/sQ5_K_M |
| Qwen 3.5 35B-A3B | won't run | 50tok/sQ4_K_M |
| Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B-A3B | won't run | 52tok/sMXFP4 |
| Qwen3 Coder 30B-A3B | won't run | 26tok/sQ4_K_M |
| gpt-oss 20B | won't run | 40tok/sMXFP4 |
| Gemma 4 12B | 8tok/sQ5_K_M | 16tok/sQ8_0 |
| Qwen 3.5 9B | 9tok/sQ6_K | 20tok/sQ8_0 |
| Gemma 3 27B | won't run | 10tok/sQ5_K_M |
| Mistral Small 3.2 24B | won't run | 10tok/sQ5_K_M |
| Ministral 3 14B | won't run | 11tok/sQ8_0 |
| Qwen3 14B | won't run | 10tok/sQ8_0 |
| DeepSeek R1 0528 Qwen3 8B | 8tok/sQ4_K_M | 16tok/sQ8_0 |
| Qwen3 8B | 8tok/sQ4_K_M | 16tok/sQ8_0 |
| Phi-4 14B | won't run | 10tok/sQ8_0 |
| Qwen 3.5 4B | 14tok/sQ8_0 | 38tok/sQ8_0 |
| Ministral 3 8B | 7tok/sQ5_K_M | 16tok/sQ8_0 |
| Granite 4.2 8B | won't run | 15tok/sQ8_0 |
| Gemma 4 E4B | 9tok/sQ8_0 | 23tok/sQ8_0 |
| LFM2.5 8B-A1B | 18tok/sQ8_0 | 48tok/sQ8_0 |
| Llama 3.1 8B | 8tok/sQ5_K_M | 20tok/sQ6_K |
| Qwen2.5 0.5B | 84tok/sQ8_0 | 230tok/sQ8_0 |
| Qwen3.5 0.8B | 63tok/sQ8_0 | 174tok/sQ8_0 |
| Qwen3.5 2B | 42tok/sQ5_K_M | 116tok/sQ5_K_M |
| LFM3 1.7B | 35tok/sQ8_0 | 95tok/sQ8_0 |
| DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B | 28tok/sQ8_0 | 76tok/sQ8_0 |
| MiniCPM5 2B | 19tok/sQ8_0 | 53tok/sQ8_0 |
| Mellum2.1 12B A2.5B Thinking | 18tok/sQ5_K_M | 41tok/sQ8_0 |
| Spark X2.5 4B | 18tok/smlx-4bit | 50tok/smlx-4bit |
| LFM2.5 2.6B | 16tok/sQ8_0 | 44tok/sQ8_0 |
| LFM2.5 VL 3B | 16tok/sQ8_0 | 44tok/sQ8_0 |
| FrogNano 4B 2609 | 14tok/sQ8_0 | 37tok/sQ8_0 |
| granite vision 4.1 4b | 12tok/sQ8_0 | 34tok/sQ8_0 |
| granite 4.2 3b | 12tok/sQ8_0 | 33tok/sQ8_0 |
| Ministral 3 3B Instruct 2512 | 11tok/sQ8_0 | 30tok/sQ8_0 |
| GLM 4.6V Flash | 10tok/sQ4_K_M | 19tok/sQ8_0 |
| GLM 4 9B 0414 | 8tok/smlx-5bit | 22tok/smlx-5bit |
| DeepSeek R1 Distill Llama 8B | 8tok/sQ5_K_M | 17tok/sQ8_0 |
| DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 7B | 8tok/sQ8_0 | 22tok/sQ8_0 |
| Ministral 3 8B Reasoning 2512 | 7tok/sQ5_K_M | 16tok/sQ8_0 |
| DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 14B | won't run | 10tok/sQ8_0 |
| Devstral Small 2507 | won't run | 10tok/sQ5_K_M |
| GLM 4.1V 9B Thinking | won't run | 16tok/smlx-8bit |
| Kimi VL A3B | won't run | 30tok/smlx-8bit |
| Kimi VL A3B Thinking 2506 | won't run | 31tok/sQ8_0 |
| LFM2.5 24B A2B | won't run | 29tok/sQ6_K |
| Magistral Small 2506 | won't run | 10tok/sQ5_K_M |
| Magistral Small 2507 | won't run | 10tok/sQ5_K_M |
| Magistral Small 2509 | won't run | 10tok/sQ5_K_M |
| Ministral 3 14B Reasoning 2512 | won't run | 11tok/sQ8_0 |
| Muse Glimmer 30B | won't run | 9tok/sQ6_K |
| Qwen3.8 27B OBLITERATED | won't run | 9tok/smlx-4bit |
| Qwen 3.5 122B-A10B | won't run | offload |
| Qwen3 Coder Next | won't run | offload |
| Mistral Small 4 119B | won't run | offload |
| GLM 4.5 Air | won't run | offload |
| Qwen3 Next 80B-A3B | won't run | offload |
| Kimi Linear 48B-A3B | won't run | offload |
| Qwen3 32B | won't run | offload |
| DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 32B | won't run | offload |
| granite 4.2 30b | 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 |
| gpt-oss 120B | won't run | won't run |
| Llama 3.3 70B | 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 Distill Llama 70B | won't run | won't run |
| DeepSeek R1 Zero | won't run | won't run |
| DeepSeek V3 | 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 4.5 | 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 | 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 16GB or the NVIDIA Tesla P40?
- Choose the NVIDIA Tesla P40 to run bigger models. Choose the NVIDIA Tesla P40 for speed. Choose the NVIDIA Tesla P40 to spend less.
- Which can run bigger models, the Mac mini M4 16GB or the NVIDIA Tesla P40?
- At 32k context the NVIDIA Tesla P40 runs 58 of the models we track fully in memory and the Mac mini M4 16GB 28; only the NVIDIA Tesla P40 holds Qwen 3.8 27B.
- Which is faster for local AI, the Mac mini M4 16GB or the NVIDIA Tesla P40?
- On the models both run fully in memory, the NVIDIA Tesla P40 is about 2.7× 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 Tesla P40?
- In the UK the Mac mini M4 16GB costs £682 at Amazon and the NVIDIA Tesla P40 £261 at eBay (used): the NVIDIA Tesla P40 is £421 cheaper.
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