alt Hacker NewsI ran ollama first because it was easy, but now download source and build llama.cpp on the machine. I don't bother saving a file system between runs on the rented machine, I build llama.cpp every time I start up.
I am usually just running gpt-oss-120b or one of the qwen models. Sometimes gemma? These are mostly "medium" sized in terms of memory requirements - I'm usually trying unquantized models that will easily run on an single 80-ish gb gpu because those are cheap.
I tend to spend $10-$20 a week. But I am almost always prototyping or testing an idea for a specific project that doesn't require me to run 8 hrs/day. I don't use the paid APIs for several reasons but cost-effectiveness is not one of those reasons.
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I don't suppose you have (or would be interested in writing) a blog post about how you set that up? Or maybe a list of links/resources/prompts you used to learn how to get there?
I know you say you don't use the paid apis, but renting a gpu is something I've been thinking about and I'd be really interested in knowing how this compares with paying by the token. I think gpt-oss-120b is 0.10/input 0.60/output per million tokens in azure. In my head this could go a long way but I haven't used gpt oss agentically long enough to really understand usage. Just wondering if you know/be willing to share your typical usage/token spend on that dedicated hardware?