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Comment by esquire_900 | Hacker News Reader

Cost wise it does not seem very effective. .5 token / sec (the optimized one) is 3600 tokens an hour, which costs about 200-300 watts for an active 3090+system. Running 3600 tokens on open router @.4$ for llama 3.1 (3.3 costs less), is about $0,00144. That money buys you about 2-3 watts (in the Netherlands).

Great achievement for privacy inference nonetheless.

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I think we use different units. In my system there are 3600 seconds per hour, and watts measure power.

OP probably means watt-hours.

And 0.5 tokens/s should work out to 1800 tokens at the end of the hour. Not 3600 as stated.

Something to consider is that input tokens have a cost too. They are typically processed much faster than output tokens. If you have long conversations then input tokens will end up being a significant part of the cost.

It probably won't matter much here though.

Open router is highly subsidized. This might be cheaper in the long run once these companies shift to taking profits

But why not cross that bridge then. By that time you might have much more optimized local infrastructure. Although I do see that someone suffering through the local slowness now is what drives the development of these local options.

> Cost wise it does not seem very effective.

Why is this so damn important? Isn't it more important to end up with the best result?

I (in Norway) use a homelab with Ollama to generate a report every morning. It's slow, but it runs between 5-6 am, energy prices are at a low, and it doesn't matter if it takes 5 or 50 minutes.

> Why is this so damn important? Isn't it more important to end up with the best result?

You’re wondering why someone would prefer to get the same or better result in less time for less money?

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