8-bit KV Cache Severely Drags Down Local Inference Performance
Sentdex · x · 2026-07-03
Sentdex discovered a counterintuitive phenomenon: many assume an 8-bit KV cache is "free" for local context, but testing GLM 5.2 (4-bit weights with an 8-bit KV) caused a massive performance hit—Terminal Bench scores plummeted from 46/89 to 21/89. The conclusion is that using a 2-bit version of GLM 5.2 is better than resorting to an 8-bit KV cache.
More from Infra
- YC talk on BCI x AI says infrastructure is what really determines speed — garrytan · 2026-07-27
- A 13B model ran on a no-GPU PC by paging weights from SSD via llama.cpp — ID_R_McGregor · 2026-07-27
- Surprising Ubuntu Setup: NVIDIA 5090 PC Becomes the Easiest AI Rig — _xjdr · 2026-07-27
- TSMC reportedly plans 5%–10% price hikes in 2027 to cover rising costs — Beth_Kindig · 2026-07-27
- Anthropic says Claude Code can drop 80% of its system prompt with no coding loss — krishnan · 2026-07-27
- Dhruv Bhatia joins fal to work on video and world models — gorkem · 2026-07-27