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How Large Does a Large Language Model Need To Be?
Large language models can have billions, or even trillions, of parameters. But how big do they need to be to achieve acceptable performance? To test this, I experimented with several of Google's Gemma 3 models, all small enough to run locally on a single GPU. Specifically I used the 1 billion parameter model, the 4 billion parameter model, and the 12 billion parameter model.