I've created a 2.54BPW quant that fit on my hardware with 128k context, 20 tps tg and 200tps pp, while maintaining high scores on many benchmarks: https://huggingface.co/tarruda/Qwen3.5-397B-A17B-GGUF/discus...
But I was not super impressed with deepseek 4 flash using it from the official API either, so it doesn't seem quantization fault. It is a good model, but nothing out of the ordinary in the few benchmarks I ran on it (with full awareness that benchmarks are biased).
I’m on an M1 Max with 32GB VRAM, so I’m looking forward to the 27B or 35B-A3B models. Is dropping $5k for an RTX 6000 or a DGX Spark really the best option?
- Your RTX 6000 is closer to $10k now
- Sparks are creeping into the $4-5k range
- AMD Strix are ~3.5k
- Apple depends on chipset and memory. Sweet spot would be 128gb M3 Ultra, probably $6-8k but admittedly haven't been tracking closely. New M5 might come in the fall. You can get a new 128gb M5 Max laptop for ~5-6k today.
- a 4x3090 rig would take $5-6k
Every platform has tradeoffs, but it's mostly ecosystem, memory bandwidth, and power consumption. They're all slow. The best option is likely to rent hardware on Runpod. The RIO on self-hosting is very low unless you have a specific need or you're ok treating it as a hobby.
>The best option is likely to rent hardware on Runpod.
Vast.ai is much cheaper, but the broader point here is contestable. The only dimension in which cloud GPU rentals win is cost. You lose the confidentiality, integrity, and availability benefits of local deployments.
In October/2024 I got my Mac studio M1 ultra with 128G, IIRC it was ~$2500. With recent prices explosion, it has certainly gotten more expensive. https://frame.work/ is selling 128G strix halo mainboard for $2700, but you have to add storage and case.
Unfortunately, the prices rose on these a lot, but unevenly. Beelink GTR 9 Pro is $4400, Framework Desktop is ~$3500, for what is basically the exact same mainboard as a Bosgame M5 for $2800.
Apple's M5 Max is another attractive option. Apple silicon traditionally had great MBW and was good at TG, but struggled with PP, but the new neural engines in those GPU cores have made a big difference in a good way here.
Gorgon Halo is rumored for June announcement with Q4'26 release with basically +100 MHz clocks on Strix Halo, LPDDR5X-8533 instead of LPDDR5X-8000, but more importantly, 192 GB max instead of 128 GB.
I'd say it's better to wait for Gorgon Halo than to grab Strix Halo now. However, Medusa Halo, rumored for H2'27, is slated to have up to 26c Zen 6 (heterogeneous cores - kinds funny that AMD is heading towards these as Intel retreats from them), 48 CU of RDNA 5 instead of 40 CU RDNA 3.5, and a 384 bit bus w/ LPDDR6, which should make 256 GB at more like ~490-600 GB/s MBW, which will really make Strix and Gorgon Halo obsolete.
Also worth keeping an eye out for Serpent Lake (intel CPU + nvidia iGPU on a single board with unified memory, rumored for 2028-2029 iirc), and on the 160 GB Crescent Island Intel dGPU.
Even with LLMs, posts like this don't just fall out of a coconut tree. If you have a set of target benchmarks for your own model, then keeping "the set" of side-by-side comparable models is its own maintenance headache.
Realistically I assume they hope readers don’t notice the fine details.
The Qwen models are great for open weights but for every past release they haven’t performed as well as the benchmarks in my experience. They’re optimizing for benchmark numbers because they know it works.
Totally understand why it may not be reasonable or in their best interest (and that the US is _absolutely_ not doing the same reflexively). But it would be lovely to be able to try these out on production workloads in earnest.
In an ideal world U.S. residents would use Chinese AI models and Chinese residents would use U.S. AI models.
Governments in both countries are collecting data for nefarious reasons. But the Chinese government has far less influence on a U.S. resident and vice versa.
We are all better off if our data is collected by a government halfway across the world instead of our own governments which hold incredible amounts of power over us.