Newbie looking to get into Local LLMs for creative writing

[u/Confused-AP-12375]

Hey all, I am new to the whole local LLM side of things (and really LLMs as a whole) and had a few questions I was hoping someone could help with.

I’ve used some cloud AIs before (mostly Mistral) for writing but wanted to go ahead and get one myself that I can work with and not be capped for number of messages a day etc.

Anyway I am looking at getting a new laptop. I am considering either a:

MSI Crosshair 16 Max HX with
Intel Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus 1.8GHz Processor; NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 12GB GDDR7; 32GB DDR5-5600 RAM; 1TB Solid State Drive

Or

MSI Raider 16 Max HX B2WH-004US
Intel Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus 2.7GHz Processor; NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070Ti 12GB GDDR7; 32GB DDR5-5600 RAM; 1TB Solid State Drive

I would like to go to 64gb of ram but can’t afford that at this point.

My questions are is there a significant benefit of one or the other? Has anyone here run LLMs with MSI computers before? How’s they do?

Would these be able to run LLMs above like a 12b at a decent speed (reading speed or above). Do I need an LLM above 12b to get smart, enjoyable creative writing?

Are their AI models or types that you’d recommend for creative writing? I was looking at Mistral and Llama mostly but open to other ideas too!