Below are my test results after running local LLMs on two machines.
I'm using LM Studio now for ease of use and simple logging/viewing of previous conversations. Later I'm gonna use my own custom local LLM system on the Mac Studio, probably orchestrated by LangChain and running models with llama.cpp.
My goal has all the time been to use them in ensembles in order to reduce model biases. The same principle has just now been introduced as a feature called "model council" in Perplexity Max: https://www.perplexity.ai/hub/blog/introducing-model-council
Chats will be stored in and recalled from a PostgreSQL database with extensions for vectors (pgvector) and graph (Apache AGE).
For both sets of tests below, MLX was used when available, but ultimately ran at almost the same speed as GGUF.
I hope this information helps someone!
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Mac Studio M3 Ultra (default w/96 GB RAM, 1 TB SSD, 28C CPU, 60C GPU):
• Gemma 3 27B (Q4_K_M): ~30 tok/s, TTFT ~0.52 s
• GPT-OSS 20B: ~150 tok/s
• GPT-OSS 120B: ~23 tok/s, TTFT ~2.3 s
• Qwen3 14B (Q6_K): ~47 tok/s, TTFT ~0.35 s
(GPT-OSS quants and 20B TTFT info not available anymore)
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MacBook Pro M1 Max 16.2" (64 GB RAM, 2 TB SSD, 10C CPU, 32C GPU):
This is advocacy journalism, not HN material. It profiles a UN official as a moral hero rather than analysing falsifiable claims about procurement, targeting systems, casualty verification methods, or supply-chain data.[1]
1. The “Double” Military-Industrial Complex (with numbers)
The article’s “economy of occupation” frame is incomplete: Gaza is a proxy-war zone where both blocs run industrial supply chains.
Western/Israeli MIC: Quincy Institute documents “at least $21.7 billion” in US military aid since Oct 7, 2023, funding Iron Beam lasers, JDAM kits, and munitions replenishment.[2] This is state-scale industrial output, not incidental corporate profiteering.
Iran-linked proxy MIC: Iran provides Hamas $350 million annually (2023 Israeli security source) and Hezbollah $700+ million/year, but has shifted from direct shipments to “broker of military-industrial knowledge,” transferring production blueprints for indigenous missile/UAV factories.[3][4] Alma Research notes this “hybrid doctrine” lets proxies manufacture locally, reducing interdiction risk.[4] Ignoring this material capacity misrepresents the war as asymmetric in only one direction.
2. “Genocide” is used by major bodies but remains legally indeterminate
The article treats the label as settled. Empirically, it is not.
Who uses it: Amnesty International (Dec 2024) concluded there is “sufficient basis” to say Israel is committing genocide.[5] UN special rapporteurs have adopted the term.
Why it’s contested: The 1948 Convention requires “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.”[6] The core dispute is inferring intent from conduct. NPR summarises: “it’s not always clear if they mean Hamas or Gazans.”[7] The ICJ’s final judgment on South Africa v. Israel is expected late 2027 or early 2028.[8] Until then, presenting the charge as fact rather than a plausible but unproven legal claim is premature.
3. Albanese’s criticism is methodological, not personal
UN Watch’s legal analysis notes her June 2025 report uses “genocide” 57 times while “Hamas” and “terrorism” appear zero times (excluding footnotes).[1] Four governments (US, France, Germany, Canada) have condemned her approach.[9] The Special Rapporteur mandate itself is anomalous: it is the only HRC mandate that is indefinite (“until the end of the Israeli occupation”) and examines only Israeli violations, systematically excluding Palestinian armed groups.[10] This isn’t about “standing with the oppressed”; it’s about whether a mandate designed for activism can produce impartial analysis.
Bottom line: HN should discuss the political economy of proxy wars and the failure of international law to handle non-state industrialised conflict, not personality-driven morality tales.
I use this model in Perplexity Pro (included in Revolut Premium), usually in threads where I alternate between Claude 4.5 Sonnet, GPT-5.2, Gemini 3 Pro, Grok 4.1 and Kimi K2.
The beauty with this availability is that any model you switch to can read the whole thread, so it's able to critique and augment the answers from other models before it. I've done this for ages with the various OpenAI models inside ChatGPT, and now I can do the same with all these SOTA thinking models.
To my surprise Kimi K2 is quite sharp, and often finds errors or omissions in the thinking and analyses of its colleagues. Now I always include it in these ensembles, usually at the end to judge the preceding models and add its own "The Tenth Man" angle.
That is so sad to hear. I absolutely loved Google Play Music – especially features like saving e.g. an online Universal Music release to my "archive" and then for myself being able to actually RENAME TRACKS with e.g. wrong metadata.
That and being able to mix my own uploaded tracks with online music releases into a curated collection almost made it a viable contender to my local iTunes collection.
And then... they just removed it forever. Bastards.
Yep, YTM is/was so clearly the inferior product it's laughable. Even as a Google employee with a discount etc (I can't remember what that was, but) on these things I switched to Spotify when they dropped it.
I worked on a team that wrote software for Chromecast based devices. The YTM app didn't even support Chromecast, our own product, and their responses on bug tickets from Googlers reporting this as a problem was pretty arrogant. It was very disheartening to watch. Complete organizational dysfunction.
I think YTM has substantially improved since then, but it still has terrible recommendations, and it still bizarrely blurs between video and music content.
Google went from a company run by engineers to one run by empire-building product managers so fast, it all happened in a matter of 2-3 years.
I like the thought, but AFAIK it doesn't really change the bottom line much, as long as you buy a used older product from a brand. Probably because the person selling it is buying a newer model, so you're still helping the company out.
I might be wrong, though. But this was the initial conclusion I arrived at when I was researching whether to buy an iPhone 17, iPhone 15 Pro (used) or Android phone. Only the last option would probably hurt Apple directly. And only a liiiiiittle.
Ah! But, of course, I will also be slowing my purchasing cycles which means I'm buying less products over my lifetime.
I plan to ride my laptop out til it dies, not buy another Apple Watch, ride my phone out until I can no longer use it. Etc.
I'll do the same with work equipment instead of getting available upgrades.
And I still have my Apple One subscription because I got the whole family on it, but maybe one day I'll make the sad choice and cut that off too.
Yea, it's absolutely tough, and it's probably meaningless in the singular sense of it all, but if more and more folk think like I do, that will absolutely hit them in their bottom line. And, selfishly, I get to feel decent about where my money is going.
That's nonsense. The choice is between you purchasing a new phone or you not purchasing a new phone. It's post hoc justification to assume that your dollars from buying a used unit will be used for something in particular. You made the decision you wanted and then built the logic to support it.
Please don't flame bait, especially about religions. Religions are all equally magical thinking nonsense with a kernel of prosocial aspirations, but that's okay so long as no one in particular is officially protected or endorsed as political [religion]. Separation between church and state (and wealth and journalism) is essential.
Can you share more info about quants or whatever is relevant? That's super interesting, since it's such a capable model.