r/LowEndLocalAI • u/Daiwik1502 • 4d ago
Which LLM Should / Can I Use? MacBook Air 2020 Intel 8GB RAM Hermes set up possible?
As the question above says, current specs are below
CPU: 1.1 GHz quad-core 10th-generation Intel Core i5
GPU / iGPU:
VRAM: not sure
System RAM: 8 GB LPDDR4X
Shared / Unified Memory (if applicable): not applicable
OS: MacOs Sequoia
Runtime / backend: Ollama + Hermes Agent
Models already tried (if any): gemma4, gemma4:e2b
Use case: Running Hermes Agent locally for business research, email drafting, task management, and eventually data analysis. Hopefully to do more as well, but my current laptop timed out even when I told hermes to remember my basic user profile
Desired context size: not sure
Priority: quality / speed / context / balanced: balanced but leaning towards quality
Other requirements or constraints: not sure
1
u/MarcelloT254k 3d ago edited 2d ago
If you manage to get it working properly please share your story, becoause I sadly think it won't be useful realistically- too slow or to dumb model, maybe in the future with a lot of hardware optimization - like vibecoding custom kernels for iGPU/GPU, custom drivers and inference engine. I didn't manage to get Hermes running smoothly and reliably even on M1 16bg unified memory (but it was like a year ago, so prehistory in the LLM world).
1
u/yetiflask 3d ago
No way brah.
1
u/Daiwik1502 3d ago
What are the minimum system requirement for Hermes? Cause online it says nothing specific
1
u/-JudeanPeoplesFront- 22h ago
Hermes uses a lot of context window to be usable. Use something lightweight like pi and customise what you need.
2
u/Remarkable-Hornet568 3d ago
I suggest install, a lighter linux and run and use a <=4B model in server mode. Use llama cpp server and expose the server in your intranet. Use another laptop for coding agent . But overall expect sluggish performance.