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DeepSeek-R1-671B-Q4_K_M with 1 or 2 Arc A770 on Xeon

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Re: DeepSeek-R1-671B-Q4_K_M with 1 or 2 Arc A770 on Xeon

#61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MoE is pretty enabling after you've spent all the extra $$$$ to stuff your server CPU memory channels with ram so it's possible to run at all. But it's still spending a lot of money which makes this a lot less novel or interesting than "just on 1~2 Arc A770" implies. Especially for the marginal performance that even 8-12 channels of CPU memory bandwidth gets you.

Actually, 384GiB is already [1] https://www.amazon.com/NEMIX-RAM-DDR4-2666MHz-PC4-21300-Redu...

A slow-end DDR4 speed older generation Xeon system is unlikely to be used by Intel for this benchmark. It's far more likely they used an expensive DDR5 modern Xeon with as many memory channels as they could. Single user LLM inference is memory bandwidth bottlenecked. I just can't see Intel using old/deprecated hardware. And if someone not Intel were to build a Xeon DDR4 system it wouldn't reach the DDR5 tokens/s speeds reported here.

The reason they used a Xeon is memory channels. Non-server CPUs only have 2 but modern Xeons have 8 to 12 depending on generation/type. And the Xeons with the most are the most $$$$ and it ends up cheaper to just get a GPU or dedicated accelerator.

Re: DeepSeek-R1-671B-Q4_K_M with 1 or 2 Arc A770 on Xeon

#62
I see there are a few options to run inference for LLM and Stable Diffusion outside Nvidia. There is Intel Arc, Apple Ms and now AMD Ryzen AI Max. It is obvious that running in Nvidia would be the most optimal way. But given the availability of high VRAM Nvidia cards at reasonable price, I can't stop thinking about getting one that is not Nvidia. So, if I'm not interested in training or fine tuning, would any of those solutions actually works? On a Linux machine?

Re: DeepSeek-R1-671B-Q4_K_M with 1 or 2 Arc A770 on Xeon

#64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This article keeps getting posted but it runs a thinking model at 3-4 tokens/s. You might as well take a vacation if you ask it a question. It’s a gimmick and not a real solution.

If you value local compute and don't need massive speed, that's still twice as fast as most people can type.

Human typing speed is magnitudes slower than our eyes scanning for the correct answer.

ChatGPT o3 mini high thinks at about 140 tokens/s by my estimation and I sometimes wish it can return answers quicker.

Getting a simple prompt answer would take 2-3 minutes using the AMD system and forget about longer context.

Re: DeepSeek-R1-671B-Q4_K_M with 1 or 2 Arc A770 on Xeon

#65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This article keeps getting posted but it runs a thinking model at 3-4 tokens/s. You might as well take a vacation if you ask it a question. It’s a gimmick and not a real solution.

It's meant to be a test/development setup for people to prepare the software environment and tooling for running the same on more expensive hardware. Not to be fast.

I remember people trying to run the game Crysis using CPU rendering. They got it to run and move around. People did it for fun and the "cool" factor. But no one actually played the game that way.

It's the same thing here. CPUs can run it but only as a gimmick.

Re: DeepSeek-R1-671B-Q4_K_M with 1 or 2 Arc A770 on Xeon

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's meant to be a test/development setup for people to prepare the software environment and tooling for running the same on more expensive hardware. Not to be fast.

I remember people trying to run the game Crysis using CPU rendering. They got it to run and move around. People did it for fun and the "cool" factor. But no one actually played the game that way. It's the same thing here. CPUs can run it but only as a gimmick.

> It's the same thing here. CPUs can run it but only as a gimmick.

No, that's not true.

I work on local inference code via llama.cpp, on both GPU and CPU on every platform, and the bottleneck is much more ram / bandwidth than compute.

Crappy Pixel Fold 2022 mid-range Android CPU gets you roughly same speed as 2024 Apple iPhone GPU, with Metal acceleration that dozens of very smart people hack on.

Additionally, and perhaps more importantly, Arc is a GPU, not a CPU.

The headline of the thing you're commenting on, the very first thing you see when you open it, is "Run llama.cpp Portable Zip on Intel GPU"

Additionally, the HN headline includes "1 or 2 Arc 7700"

Re: DeepSeek-R1-671B-Q4_K_M with 1 or 2 Arc A770 on Xeon

#67
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It better be! AMD @ $2k: https://digitalspaceport.com/how-to-run-deepseek-r1-671b-ful...

This article keeps getting posted but it runs a thinking model at 3-4 tokens/s. You might as well take a vacation if you ask it a question. It’s a gimmick and not a real solution.

Exactly! I run it on my old T7910 Dell workstation (2x 2697A V4, 640GB RAM) that I build for way less than a $1k. But so what, it's about ~2 tokens / s. Just like you said, it's cool that it's run at all, but that's it.

Re: DeepSeek-R1-671B-Q4_K_M with 1 or 2 Arc A770 on Xeon

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember people trying to run the game Crysis using CPU rendering. They got it to run and move around. People did it for fun and the "cool" factor. But no one actually played the game that way. It's the same thing here. CPUs can run it but only as a gimmick.

> It's the same thing here. CPUs can run it but only as a gimmick. No, that's not true. I work on local inference code via llama.cpp, on both GPU and CPU on every platform, and the bottleneck is much more ram / bandwidth than compute. Crappy Pixel Fold 2022 mid-range Android CPU gets you roughly same speed as 2024 Apple iPhone GPU, with Metal acceleration that dozens of very smart people hack on. Additionally, and pe…

It's both compute and bandwidth constrained - just like trying to run Crysis on CPU rendering.

A770 has 16GB of RAM. You're shuffling data to the GPU at a rate of 64GB/s, which is magnitudes slower than the internal VRAM of the GPU. Hence, this setup is memory bandwidth constrained.

However, once you want to use it to do anything useful like a longer context size, the CPU compute will be a huge bottleneck for time-to-first-token as well as tokens/s.

Trying to run a model this large, and a thinking one at that, on CPU RAM is a gimmick.

Re: DeepSeek-R1-671B-Q4_K_M with 1 or 2 Arc A770 on Xeon

#69

I see there are a few options to run inference for LLM and Stable Diffusion outside Nvidia. There is Intel Arc, Apple Ms and now AMD Ryzen AI Max. It is obvious that running in Nvidia would be the most optimal way. But given the availability of high VRAM Nvidia cards at reasonable price, I can't stop thinking about getting one that is not Nvidia. So, if I'm not interested in training or fine tuning, would any of thos…

If you actually want to seriously do this, go with Nvidia.

This article is basically Intel saying remember us, we made a GPU! And they make great budget cards, but the ecosystem is just so far behind.

Honestly this is not something you can really do on a budget.

Re: DeepSeek-R1-671B-Q4_K_M with 1 or 2 Arc A770 on Xeon

#70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's the same thing here. CPUs can run it but only as a gimmick. No, that's not true. I work on local inference code via llama.cpp, on both GPU and CPU on every platform, and the bottleneck is much more ram / bandwidth than compute. Crappy Pixel Fold 2022 mid-range Android CPU gets you roughly same speed as 2024 Apple iPhone GPU, with Metal acceleration that dozens of very smart people hack on. Additionally, and pe…

It's both compute and bandwidth constrained - just like trying to run Crysis on CPU rendering. A770 has 16GB of RAM. You're shuffling data to the GPU at a rate of 64GB/s, which is magnitudes slower than the internal VRAM of the GPU. Hence, this setup is memory bandwidth constrained. However, once you want to use it to do anything useful like a longer context size, the CPU compute will be a huge bottleneck for time-to…

Okay, let's stipulate LLMs are compute and bandwidth sensitive (of course!)...

#1, should highlight it up front this time: We are talking about _G_PUs :)

#2 You can't get a single consumer GPU that has enough memory to load a 670B parameter model, there's some magic going on here. It's notable and distinct. This is probably due to FlashMoE, given it's prominence in the link.

TL;Dr: 1) these are Intel _G_PUs, and 2) it is a remarkable distinct achievement to be loading a 670B parameter model on only one to two cards

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