How I Tested 5 Small LLMs on a Weak PC (Intel i5, No GPU) – And Found a Winner
A developer tested five small LLMs (under 2 billion parameters) on a standard office PC without a dedicated GPU to determine which models perform best on budget hardware. The tests focused on token-per-second speed and the quality of creative writing, specifically generating funny cat stories. LFM2.5-350M was the fastest, ideal for quick tasks, while LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct offered the best balance of quality and performance for general use on CPU-only systems. AI
IMPACT Identifies viable LLM options for users with limited hardware, expanding accessibility for AI tasks.