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Qwen 3.6 27B is the sweet spot for local development

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Re: Qwen 3.6 27B is the sweet spot for local development

#201

Post by r_lee »

colinsane wrote: post #126
bensyverson wrote: post #26

The article is based on running Qwen 3.6 on a 128GB MacBook Pro. For reference, a 128GB MBP currently starts at $6699 USD [0] Some people will be happy to pay that premium for privacy, but at roughly 10X the cost of a MacBook Neo, that money could also buy a lot of credits on OpenRouter or frontier labs. [0]: https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/macbook-pro/14-inch-space...

i like that people are taking the privacy argument seriously, after however many decades. i think there are other arguments to be made for running these locally which are less settled, but IMO the Fable debacle drives it home: the surest way to embrace this technology without worry that it will be taken away from you down the road is to physically own the compute.

if you need to ensure that, then just back up the model and buy hardware if the need arises

Re: Qwen 3.6 27B is the sweet spot for local development

#202

Post by acchow »

bensyverson wrote: post #26

The article is based on running Qwen 3.6 on a 128GB MacBook Pro. For reference, a 128GB MBP currently starts at $6699 USD [0] Some people will be happy to pay that premium for privacy, but at roughly 10X the cost of a MacBook Neo, that money could also buy a lot of credits on OpenRouter or frontier labs. [0]: https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/macbook-pro/14-inch-space...

That $6700 is a $5000 upgrade over a base model Macbook Pro.

$5000 in US Treasuries (currently at 4.89%) yields $244.5/yr. That's more than enough to cover the annual Claude Pro subscription ($200/yr) which includes Claude Code with lots of Sonnet usage (far better than Qwen 3.6)

Re: Qwen 3.6 27B is the sweet spot for local development

#204

Post by verdverm »

iagooar wrote: post #199

I love my MacBook Pro M5 128GB RAM and I love qwen3.6. BUT DO NOT buy this MacBook if you plan on doing serious coding using local LLMs with it. The reason is simple: your fingers will burn and your head will explode from the noise. Running any kind of sophisticated job on the very laptop you are using is just not viable. Sure you can use it in clamshell mode, but forget touching it while working with AI coding or ag…

Get an OEM Spark instead, mine are silent and can fit 2 qwen/gemma at 8bit or give you room for a bunch of other, smaller models (embed,rerank,etc)

Re: Qwen 3.6 27B is the sweet spot for local development

#205

Post by redox99 »

bensyverson wrote: post #26

The article is based on running Qwen 3.6 on a 128GB MacBook Pro. For reference, a 128GB MBP currently starts at $6699 USD [0] Some people will be happy to pay that premium for privacy, but at roughly 10X the cost of a MacBook Neo, that money could also buy a lot of credits on OpenRouter or frontier labs. [0]: https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/macbook-pro/14-inch-space...

I bought 2 used 3090s some years ago for $500 each. They're probably a bit more expensive now, but I guess for something like $2000 you can build a barebones 2x3090 PC which will be way faster than a Macbook. (you're fine with very basic hardware outside the GPUs)

Re: Qwen 3.6 27B is the sweet spot for local development

#207

Post by oceanplexian »

iagooar wrote: post #199

I love my MacBook Pro M5 128GB RAM and I love qwen3.6. BUT DO NOT buy this MacBook if you plan on doing serious coding using local LLMs with it. The reason is simple: your fingers will burn and your head will explode from the noise. Running any kind of sophisticated job on the very laptop you are using is just not viable. Sure you can use it in clamshell mode, but forget touching it while working with AI coding or ag…

If you want to do coding with a local LLM your best bet is a 6 year old Nvidia 3090 which is substantially more powerful than the highest end overhyped Apple product for 1/5th the price.

Re: Qwen 3.6 27B is the sweet spot for local development

#208

Post by verdverm »

doodlesdev wrote: post #83

I feel like I'm going insane seeing people buy these 128gb MBP for thousands of dollars to run models that are objectively much worse than SOTA and spending so much more. The amount spent on a 128gb M5 MAX can buy you a damned new car here. What the hell am I missing? Are developers in other countries living in such different worlds? (I'm aware the price is, in absolute terms, more expensive where I live compared to…

It's not always about the price or being the cheapest. For me, it's about freedom, both to play and from the govt/corp censorship.

Re: Qwen 3.6 27B is the sweet spot for local development

#209

Post by SkitterKherpi »

iagooar wrote: post #199

I love my MacBook Pro M5 128GB RAM and I love qwen3.6. BUT DO NOT buy this MacBook if you plan on doing serious coding using local LLMs with it. The reason is simple: your fingers will burn and your head will explode from the noise. Running any kind of sophisticated job on the very laptop you are using is just not viable. Sure you can use it in clamshell mode, but forget touching it while working with AI coding or ag…

I am considering getting something like NVIDIA's RTX Spark when it comes out, though even that will be limited to 128GB.

Re: Qwen 3.6 27B is the sweet spot for local development

#210

Post by dofm »

swiftcoder wrote: post #179
ddalex wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just got Claude to download and install all the models and servers and agents and prepare all the launch scripts for me... no need to learn, just ask it to do it for you

I don't necessarily think your answer is wrong for all people, but if you work in software... how do you plan to differentiate yourself from everyone else out there, if the depth of your understanding is "Claude can do it for me"?

This ultimately is the discussion I am here for.

I mean one of the things I use a local LLM for, because I can, is to generate starter documentation. But I ask it to — I want it to give me overviews, plans, all that. It can make something bespoke for me.

I guess I could also ask it to do the work. But where do you draw the line?

The universal labour-saving device is the great provocation of the next 100 years I think, and both Star Trek and Wall-E have grappled with it.

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