RTX Spark runs 27B models well, but gaming laptops lose out for local AI
draginol · x · 2026-10-19
Blogger draginol benchmarked Gemma 12B (Q4KM) on an NVIDIA RTX Spark (6144-core Blackwell GPU, 64GB unified memory): 1,522 tok/s prefill, 31.1 tok/s decode, 990ms first token — noticeably slow.
The key takeaway: the RTX Spark can run 27B models quite well, and 27B is roughly the threshold where models start doing real work. A gaming laptop's memory bandwidth advantage only matters for small models that fit in GPU memory, so it isn't a good candidate for local AI; cheaper NPU-based solutions (Qualcomm/AMD/Intel) make more sense for smaller models.
Related event: RTX Spark Tested: Runs 27B Models Locally, Beats Gaming Laptops(4 posts)→
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