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I have a squadron of chaos space marines that I wish to equipped with some different weapons. The codex states that I can replace a bolt pistol with a plasma pistol. Does this mean I need my model to posses a plasma pistol? Or trading the bolt gun for melee weapons require the marine to need a close combat weapon?

The general convention is for equipment to be modeled where possible, yes. Otherwise things get confusing really quickly, as the players have to try to remember which models have what gear.

Generally yes, you must model upgrades appropriately.

People generally don't care if you model some basic gear. Marines generally have Bolters, Pistols, as well as Frag and Krak grenades. Nobody cares if you haven't found frag and krak grenades to give all your marines, as well as making sure you have a bolt pistol on each of them.

But if you give one guy a plasma pistol he better have it modeled because you measure ranges for that weapon from him, and he can potentially be deliberately targeted and killed. He better not look exactly like the regular bolter marine next to him.

While some people will say you can run models as whatever you want them to be, it's a general courtesy to have your models be obvious in what they carry. As mentioned above, some stuff is just assumed, like grenades on marines, and certain things don't really have a piece you can put on the models, like the PFG my librarian carries, but if you change a model from what it's supposed to be carrying people like it when you model that.

It gets really annoying in large games when you have to keep track of what's what. It turns into me constantly asking "now which guy is that" before I do anything every turn, as even if you yourself might remember which models are supposed to be carrying the plasma gun, you can't expect your opponent to keep track of all his own stuff while also remembering "it's the guy with the helmet tilted slightly to the right" or something like that.

Also, not saying you'd do it, but not properly modeling weapons can easily turn into shenanigans. I played against a guy that didn't have any of the weapons modeled on his crisis suits, but they all had different weapons. And I'm talking 9 suits, all different weapons. I specifically remember him saying "oh, did I say you killed the fusion? I meant you killed the plasma", coincidentally right before he was about to shoot at a tank. So as a general rule even, unless you have proven to be a decent person I won't trust unmarked models.

Alright thanks for the tips!