I am planning to buy a new GPU. If the GPU has 16GB of VRAM, and the model is 70GB, can it still run well? Also, does it run considerably better than on a GPU with 12GB of VRAM? I run Ollama locally, mixtral works well (7B, 3.4GB) on a 1080ti, but the 24.6GB version is a bit slow (still usable, but has a noticeable start-up time).
Llama.cpp + quantized models on Apple Silicon is an incredible experience, and having 192 GB of unified memory to work with means you can run models that just aren't feasible on a home GPU setup.
It really boils down to what type of local development you want to do. I'm mostly experimenting with things where the time to response isn't that big of a deal, and not fine-tuning the models locally (which I also believe GPUs are still superior for). But if your concern is "how big of a model can I run" vs "Can I have close to real time chat", the unified memory approach is superior.