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Mac mini, M5 Pro, 24GB vs Mac mini, M5 Pro, 48GB

Both hold Gemma-3-27B at Q4_K_M, and Mac mini, M5 Pro, 48GB is not meaningfully faster — an est. 12.2 tok/s against 12.2. Buy Mac mini, M5 Pro, 24GB and keep the $800.

For Gemma-3-27B at Q4_K_MMac mini 24GBMac mini 48GB
Fit
Tight
Fits
Headroom
1GB
25GB
Est. speed
12.2 tok/s
12.2 tok/s
Cheapest today
$1,699 at Apple
$2,499 at Apple
Per GB of memory
$71
$52
Memory
24GB unified memory
48GB unified memory
Usable for a model
21GB
44GB
Memory bandwidth
307GB/s
307GB/s
Storage
512GB
512GB
Lowest recorded
$1,699 in 2d
$2,499 in 2d

Fit, headroom and speed are computed from each vendor’s published bandwidth and the model’s own size at 8K context. Prices are the cheapest listing we could read on each seller’s page. The arithmetic is here.

Where they actually differ

Every model we track at Q4_K_M. The rows where the two boxes agree are dimmed, because they are not what you are choosing between.