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A comment on Show HN: Open-source engine running Gemma 4 26B in 2 GB RAM on any M-series Mac. Parent comment

Re:Show HN: Open-source engine running Gemma 4 26B in 2 GB R... by wongarsu on Wednesday July 29, 2026 @11:35AM (#49098882)
My suspicion is that this is simply due to the M5 having more memory, and the OS already having most of the file cached. The M2 has more memory pressure and would cache fewer of the SSD reads

If that's true, inference speed would be even lower if you have only 2GB total, including OS caches

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Re:Show HN: Open-source engine running Gemma 4 26B in 2 GB R... by GeekyBear on Wednesday July 29, 2026 @02:14PM (#49101015)
The base level M5 doesn't just have more memory than the base level M2.

The memory bandwidth is bumped up by 50%, and the size of the on-die system level cache is bumped up by 50% as well.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Show HN: Open-source engine running Gemma 4 26B in 2 GB R... by icedchai on Wednesday July 29, 2026 @07:07PM (#49104258)
I recently got an M5 Air as a second machine. I question if I'll even need a Pro machine in the future, as long as I can get enough RAM with the base chip (which seems unlikely, but...)
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