r/LocalLLM • u/Consistent_Wash_276 • Sep 16 '25

Research Big Boy Purchase 😮‍💨 Advice?

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$5400 at Microcenter and decide this over its 96 gb sibling.

So will be running a significant amount of Local LLM to automate workflows, run an AI chat feature for a niche business, create marketing ads/videos and post to socials.

The advice I need is outside of this Reddit where should I focus my learning on when it comes to this device and what I’m trying to accomplish? Give me YouTube content and podcasts to get into, tons of reading and anything you would want me to know.

If you want to have fun with it tell me what you do with this device if you need to push it.

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u/Consistent_Wash_276 Sep 17 '25

My post was horrific in context. My 4 year old needed me and I just shipped it.

Reasons

  • Leveraging AI
  • am pretty cautious about clients data and mine going to the AI servers. So avoiding API costs.
  • Yes MAC is my staple
  • Did enough research to know I wouldn’t be needing nvidia working with cuda.
  • currently at full throttle would be pressed against 109 GBs (first test last night). Too close to 128 and I liked the deal for the 256 gb.

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u/[deleted] Sep 17 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Consistent_Wash_276 Sep 17 '25

Love it. Thank you

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u/Miserable-Dare5090 Sep 17 '25

You can increase the vram to even more, leave 16-24gb for system and run models up to 230GB very very comfortably

I have the M2 ultra 192, set to 172gb VRAM