Topic
Model Selection
4 posts on model selection — guides and lab notes from real runs on hardware we own. New posts land here automatically. Start anywhere, or grab the copy-paste prompts that ship with them.
- 5 min read
When a 4B Local LLM Beats 26B on One Task
On one RTX 5090 workshop, a 4B model beat a 26B model on speed while both passed four code checks. Here is the model-selection rule I kept.
- 5 min read
VRAM Fit Is Not Runtime Support
A local model can fit in VRAM, download cleanly, and still fail before the first token. My 5090 test adds runtime support as a separate gate.
- 5 min read
A 7 GB 27B Model Lost to My 17 GB Default
A 6.66 GiB ternary 27B model fit my RTX 5090, but it lost the default slot. File size is only the first local model-selection gate.
- 6 min read
My 8B Model Failed a 400-Word Task
Three Llama 3.1 8B runs missed a 400-word floor. Here is the verifier-driven route that moved long-form synthesis to Gemma 4 26B.
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