MacBook Air M5 (15-inch), 16GB vs AMD Radeon AI PRO R9700, 32GB for local AI
Two machines people weigh against each other for running models at home. Same models, same prices, same arithmetic on both sides.
| MacBook Air M5 (15-inch), 16GB | AMD Radeon AI PRO R9700, 32GB | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $1,499 | $1,299 |
| Memory | 16 GB | 32 GB |
| Usable by the GPU | 10.5 GB | 31 GB |
| Memory bandwidth | 153 GB/s | 640 GB/s |
| Power under load | 65 W | 300 W |
| Models that fit | 10 | 27 |
| Best model it runs | Gemma 4 12B | Qwen3.8 27B |
| Speed on that model | 14 tok/s | 30 tok/s |
| Pay-back | Pays back in 118 years | Pays back in 17 years |
Run the numbers on the MacBook Air M5 (15-inch), 16GB · or the AMD Radeon AI PRO R9700, 32GB
Both columns use the same default usage: 500k tokens a day at 15:1 input to output, 32k context, and each machine's strongest model that fits.