LocalLLaMA builds hit car-price ceiling

The "car price" comment is the new "can it run Crysis?"—a meme that masks a deeper anxiety about the soaring hardware costs of local AI. The shift to massive models like Llama 4 and DeepSeek V3 is forcing a VRAM-first arms race that leaves consumer budgets behind. Dual RTX 5090 or Mac Studio M4 Ultra setups are now the minimum entry point for high-end local inference. These builds are increasingly indistinguishable from professional workstations, creating a culture clash in formerly budget-friendly hobbyist spaces where price-shaming could stifle the open sharing of performance data.