Buying hardware to run AI models at home can feel like guesswork — vague marketing specs, conflicting forum recommendations, and prices that range from a few hundred dollars to well over ten thousand. This guide cuts through that by focusing on the one number that actually predicts what you can run, then matching it to real machines you can buy today. Why Memory Is the Real Bottleneck Running a coding-capable LLM at home used to mean a multi-GPU rig. In 2026, a single well-chosen machine can do it — and the deciding spec isn't raw compute, it's memory capacity and …