16 GB of system memory vs 16 GB of VRAM / unified memory (? I think this is the case for recent Apple machines) makes a huge difference. The former is more of a neat party trick (depending on who you hang out with) and the latter is actually something you can use as a tool to be more efficient.
I recently bought a 7900 XTX with 24 GB of VRAM, but the model I currently run can easily run in 16 GB (6 bit llama 3 8b). It's fast enough and high enough quality that I can use it for processing information that I don't feel comfortable sharing with hosted services. It's definitely not the best of the best as far as what models are able to do right now, but it's surprisingly useful.
I recently bought a 7900 XTX with 24 GB of VRAM, but the model I currently run can easily run in 16 GB (6 bit llama 3 8b). It's fast enough and high enough quality that I can use it for processing information that I don't feel comfortable sharing with hosted services. It's definitely not the best of the best as far as what models are able to do right now, but it's surprisingly useful.