this post was submitted on 09 Jan 2025
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[–] msage 2 points 15 hours ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 hours ago

Any paper about any neural network.

Using a model to get one output is just a series of multiplications (not even that, we use vector multiplication but yeah), it's less than or equal to rendering ONE frame in 4k games.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago) (1 children)

I don't have a source for that, but the most that any locally-run program can cost in terms of power is basically the sum of a few things: maxed-out gpu usage, maxed-out cpu usage, maxed-out disk access. GPU is by far the most power-consuming of these things, and modern video games make essentially the most possible use of the GPU that they can get away with.

Running an LLM locally can at most max out usage of the GPU, putting it in the same ballpark as a video game. Typical usage of an LLM is to run it for a few seconds and then submit another query, so it's not running 100% of the time during typical usage, unlike a video game (where it remains open and active the whole time, GPU usage dips only when you're in a menu for instance.)

Data centers drain lots of power by running a very large number of machines at the same time.

[–] msage 1 points 7 hours ago

From what I know, local LLMs take minutes to process a single prompt, not seconds, but I guess that depends on the use case.

But also games, dunno about maxing GPU in most games. I maxed mine for crypto mining, and that was power hungry. So I would put LLMs closer to crypto than games.

Not to mention games will entertain you way more for the same time.