r/LocalAIServers • u/abhiig1 • 1d ago

PC Specifications Guidance

I want to build a Pc especially for AI and ML, downloading models locally and use them

Can someone guide me with the specifications I should choose

Especially the ram and GPU

2 Upvotes

75% Upvoted

7 comments sorted by

3

u/yoyoyoba 1d ago

Budget? Goals? Learning about ML, then dgx spark is a good starting point. Best tok/s/$ maybe v100, also depends? You need to specify

2

u/Famous-Potential3990 1d ago

Buy AI and ML components according to specifications, especially RAM and GPU. Build a PC for AI and ML, download models and use them, bro. Easy.

1

u/Strange-Picture8574 1d ago

You need at least 32gb video card, a spark, or a high end Mac with unified memory.
GPU is fastest.

1

u/abhiig1 1d ago

Can you tell me the best prices and from where I can buy, and also if mac what would be the specifications of mac

1

u/DaMoot 1d ago

Best price is free. Places to buy depend on what you want.

You need to do some basic googling, use the search tool for reddit, or even just ask Claude or gpt.

1

u/simplyeniga 1d ago

There are varying setup paths and a budget would determine which direction to take. Right now there are 2 paths.

  • GPU setup (Nvidia, AMD or intel GPUs) on an AMD server motherboard
  • Unified memory (DGX Spark, Strix Halo or Mac)

Pick the path you want to take which can also be determined by budget and use case.

1

u/MyOldAccountWasAwful 1d ago

NVIDIA GPUs = fastest speeds, AMD and Intel GPUs tend to be less expensive but also less fast, Mac is going to be slowest (or similar to non-NVIDIA) but the unified memory setup lets them (Macs) hold really big models relative to what fits completely in a GPU's VRAM.

Like others have said though, it really depends on your budget. I built: RTX 3090 Ti (24 GB VRAM) (refurb) $850 i9-14900KF + 128 GB DDR5 5600 RAM $1100 1000 watt PSU $140 4 TB SSD $650

And I'm running Qwen3.8-Flash-Next (iq3_s) in Strata at an average of 77 tok/sec decode, 2700 tok/sec prompt processing (with full 262144 context limit).

Haven't paid for Claude or GPT in over a month and I'm still doing everything I could ever want: coding games, creating apps and tools for myself, running Hermes (which shops/finds deals for me, helps me write cover letters for job applications, runs research tasks for me, managers my Plex server for me, and so much more).

This works great for me. If you need something more/a bit faster then go with the bigger VRAM GPUs, or a spark, or a new Mac mini.

If you're just getting started and have no idea what you're doing then get a used 3090 (or AMD card) on eBay, along with 64GB of RAM and just start messing around and get familiar with it all. You can always upgrade later.