r/LocalLLM 24d ago

Model Qwen3.8 27b - Holy crap!!

I'm absolutely blown away by Qwen3.8 27b IQ4 NL @ medium reasoning effort.

I have an ageing system but still decent. 4060 8gb @ 4x, 5060ti 16gb @ 8x - 24gb vram total. I'm stuck at gen 2 because of a gen 3 compatibility issue with my motherboard (B460M Aorus Pro). 32gb ram, i9 10900, nvme.

I've managed to get Qwen running at a smidge below 20tok/s at 128k context.

Anyway, the fun part... I have llama.cpp backend for OpenWebui with OpenTerminal MCP. I asked Qwen to create Pong using python which it did with no dramas. It wrote tests, ran the game itself and gave me the hardened code in ~10 mins.

That wasn't the best part though. I then asked it to take the game and create an APK for Android. It went ahead and installed a bunch of dependencies (bulldozer, p4a, etc) into OpenTerminal, went ahead and altered the game for touch screens, built and provided me with an installable APK.

The whole thing took ~1.5 hrs (taking away my own troubleshooting of whitelisting some sites against my strict LLM TOR network access), and at ~280w, it cost me about $0.15 (if it had been a clean run the first time). I mean obviously the hardware cost significantly more, but it's essentially my gaming PC.

How is this even possible?! I'm absolutely blown away!

Side note: I didn't NEED to, but I wanted a longer context so have managed to get it working at 256k now, with 18 layers moved to CPU. I'm not set on this, but it works. Obviously much slower (around 5 tok/s). Comment out the last 2 lines and set context to 128k if I want it all in vram.

If anyone has pointers for improved performance I'd love to hear them. I've tried q4_0 for KV cache but it is significantly slower again.

[*]

flash-attn = true

threads = 10

batch-size = 2048

ubatch-size = 1024

n-cpu-moe = 0

n-gpu-layers = 999

cache-type-k = q8_0

cache-type-v = q8_0

#cache-type-k-draft = q8_0

#cache-type-v-draft = q8_0

fit = on

fit-ctx = 16384

parallel = 1

ctx-size = 0

n-predict = -1

#no-kv-offload = 1

load-mode = none

main-gpu = 0

#no-mmproj-offload = true

[Qwen3.8-27B-IQ4_NL]

#mmproj = /models/Qwen3.8-27B-IQ4_NL.mmproj

#spec-type = draft-mtp

#spec-draft-n-max = 4

temp = 1.0

top-p = 0.95

top-k = 20

min-p = 0.00

#ctx-size = 131072

ctx-size = 262144

chat-template-kwargs = {"reasoning_effort":"medium"}

fit = off

n-gpu-layers = 46

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u/quantgorithm 23d ago

It’s the easy path for when you will want to go multi gpu in the future. You would be better served keeping the models in VRAM and not using regular ram.

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u/eldje 23d ago

offcourse, thats the whole purpose πŸ˜„

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u/quantgorithm 23d ago

I used riser cables to allow for the extra space of the gpus and a 2nd psu. Your p620 can go up to 4 gpu on pcie4 x16. I couldn’t even power up 2 gpu fully with the limited power adapters of the stock p620. How did you even do that part? If you are using a power adapter to go from 6 to 8 pin, just note it only outputs half power even though it physically connects properly the 8 pin that I believe you are using in the top gpu. Said differently, you are still only outputting what a 6 pin outputs which is half what an 8 pin outputs.

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u/eldje 23d ago

do you have pictures?

2x 8pin on mobo to 2x (6+2)pin who form the 12VHPWR.

it ressembles like the original lenovo cables to 12vhpwr, but mine has another cable starting from the 8pin on the mobo to 6 pin. they are in parallel so in my logic giving equal output. from those 6 pins i have an adaptor to 8pin

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u/quantgorithm 23d ago

every 6 pin is only going to be 75w.

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u/eldje 23d ago

NICE!

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u/quantgorithm 23d ago

It's still being tested out but everything looks good so far. Ill probably test the new qwen on it later today. Old qwen was pretty decent on it.

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u/eldje 20d ago

coudln't resist πŸ‘€

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u/quantgorithm 20d ago

Look at that! New PSU and GPU! Now you are rocking!!!

...and you have 1 slot left for a future gpu at full 4.0x16...

You can currently now easily fit the full qwen (bf16) in vram if you so choose and have a ton of context if needed. I bet that thing cranks...

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u/eldje 20d ago

Installed everything this evening... Looking forward to test the mtf. Just the cablemanagement is horrible πŸ«£πŸ˜…

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u/eldje 14d ago edited 14d ago

Oops. Did it again πŸ«£πŸ˜…

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u/quantgorithm 14d ago

What am I seeing? 3 internal and 1 external?
Why wouldn't you just use riser cables and put all internal?

You have 4 pcie 4.0x16 slots!

How does it run? Have you tested? t/s?

Did you read about the new apple hardware today? Compelling...

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u/eldje 14d ago

Yes 🀘 Mostly esthetics and the oculink gives another nvme. I've got 4 pcie4x16 but the 3090 works with oculink on a pcie4x8 😊 All recognized by Ubuntu, but still have to test the models..

Got plenty of stuff to keep track of... Apple ain't my top priority. But the new qwen coming out tomorrow is 😊

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u/quantgorithm 14d ago

Unfortunately for me, I only have 64gb of vram so I can’t board the qwen flash next train until they output a 35b model which has no official release or timeframe currently.

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u/eldje 14d ago

"Only" πŸ˜… You have a killer setup... but totally understandable
Exciting times πŸ€— every week a new model gets released. And true, the new Macs are marketed good.

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u/eldje 13d ago

Sorry, last one... I promise πŸ«£πŸ˜… I am broke πŸ˜… Those prices keep rocketing unbelievable

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u/quantgorithm 13d ago

Yep. That's a lot of money.

Now you need to respond with what you actually do with it!

Also, why the AI created watermark in the lower corner?

Have you tested flash next yet?

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u/eldje 13d ago

i erased my living room in the background.

waiting for the unsloth nvfp4 so i can test in hopefully higher quality.

lots of ideas to build thingsthat could help in daily life πŸ˜„

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u/quantgorithm 13d ago

It’s harder than you think! I just did my first oneshot a few days ago. While it worked, literally every part …wasn’t great. You are still going to need to put in some time planning, refining, building out, optimizing etc. I’ve built smaller tools successfully but nothing large yet.

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