Why You Want to run LLM on Your Own Laptop/PC

The pros and cons of running Cloud llm vs over llm in own laptop/pc.

Note: llm stands for Large Language Model

✅ Pros:

1. Privacy & Security – Data stays local, reducing the risk of exposure.
2. Lower Long-Term Costs – No recurring cloud fees; only initial hardware investment.
3. Offline Availability – Can run without an internet connection, making it more reliable in remote areas.
4. Customization & Control – More freedom to fine-tune models and integrate with one’s local private and confidential applications.

❌ Cons:

1. Do not have the convenience and power of using Cloud LLMs’  High-end GPUs (like RTX 4090 or Apple M-series chips) for optimal performance.
2. You expect to face slower processing of LLMs – Laptops struggle with large models, leading to longer inference times.
3. You require at least RAM 16GB, ideally 32GB+ to run most basic level LLM processing of inputs.
4. Setup & Maintenance – These are to be handled all by yourself.

We like the Pros.

Let us look at the Cons, one by one.

1. If you’re working on more common use cases like AI Chatbots & Personal Assistants, Coding Assistance & AI Pair Programming, Summarization & Content Generation, Document & PDF Analysis, Local AI Search & Knowledge Base or Language Translation & NLP Tasks, you could be doing fine with a 16 GB ram laptop/notebook.
2. You could select one LLM model that balance performance, efficiency, and hardware requirements.
3. You are okay to use an OEM laptop/notebook product which is very much cheaper that branded ones for the same specifications required to run your own LLM.
4. There are currently tools, like Ollama, LM Studio, or text-generation-webui which works seamlessly on open source LLMs like LLaMA 2 (7B, 13B) – Meta, Mistral 7B, DeepSeek, etc.

I’m currently working on two personal LLM projects, namely

• Adopts Chinese Medicine Practices for Health
  Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, not absence of disease or infirmity https://www.instagram.com/reuben_h_c_ong/
• 不为人上人，愿作井中泉。 一滴滋田野，千流润心田。Understands Chinese Culture & Wisdom through words, symbols and stories https://www.threads.net/@reuben_h_c_ong

Both of the above, has something in common i.e to gain insights and further understanding of the subjects, knowing Chinese Language is a pre-requisite. Also, DeepSeek LLM has more pros to advance the above.

I use the following: –

Touch Screen Notebook PC

WIFI: Dual band WIFI 802.11b/g/n+BT+5G

Colour: Silver

System: Win 11 Pro

Display ratio: 16:09

Screen: 14″ IPS 1920×1080

Thickness: 21 – 25mm

Four In One Mode:

1. Laptop,  2. Tablet   3.Standing screen mode, 3. Adjustable 360 display screen

c/w Friendly interfaces to other devices

CPU Processor:  Intel(R) N95

Graphics card: Intel Integrated card

Video Memory type: GDDR4

Installed RAM: Build-in 16GB

Drives: M2-2280: 182GB, 146GB, 146GB

System Type: 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor

Pen & touch: Pen and touch support with 10 touch points

Battery: 5000mA (3-5hours Working Time), Lithium-ion polymer battery 7.4V

 

I love to hear your comments on the above or your experience in running LLM in your own laptop/pc.

You could contact me on social media linktree’s reubeno100 app

https://linktr.ee/reubeno100

or using the comment’s box below.

Thank you

Reuben HC Ong