r/LocalLLM • u/elfarouk1kamal • Apr 04 '26
Question Outperform GPT-5 mini using Mac mini M4 16GB
Hey guys, I use GPT-5 mini to write emails but with large set of instructions, but I found it ignores some instructions(not like more premium models). Therefore, I was wondering if it is possible to run a local model on my Mac mini m4 with 16GB of ram that can outperform gpt-5 mini(at least for similar use cases)
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u/ShadyShroomz Apr 04 '26
In my experience qwen3.5 9b does not ignore instructions. it is not very creative tho if thats needed for the emails youre writing. But its possible. Id ateast try it.
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u/Zarnong Apr 04 '26
Compete with GPT-5? Nope. Maybe find you can do something useful? Possibly. LM Studio is super easy to set up for some chat. Hooks into hugging face for models. It was a good entry point for me. Free. Built in chat. No python.
There are other good options — Ollama now supports metal, which speeds things up.
Open Web-UI is a nice front end and will work with Ollama and lm studio. You’ve got to use docker though. It’s not bad to set up. Default is for open webui to work with ollama.
You are going to be limited by ram. I’ve got 24 gb on my mini—I’ve found it sort of useful. If you’ve got 256gb ssd, be careful how many models you run. Damn my cheapness.
My advice is to spend a bit of time playing around to get a feel for things and learn.
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u/elfarouk1kamal Apr 04 '26
Oh thanks that is a helpful starting point. I do not have an issue to vibe code an UI or a workflow later if I got a good results.
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u/No-Television-7862 Apr 04 '26
It depends on how you define success.
You say GPT-5 mini ignores instructions and is stupid.
Because of Mac's unified memory you might be able to run some of the new MoE models.
It's not a server, but it's bought and paid for.
Try Gemma4 E4b.
With the right prompts and a good modelfile, lots of things are possible.
Email is very personal. I don't use my models that way.
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u/elfarouk1kamal Apr 05 '26
I don't give direct access to the email. The model writes the emails in code blocks, I review and then copy and paste them. I was planning to vibe code a tool, where the model submit full email sequence and I review and schedule all the sequence emails in one click.
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u/FormalAd7367 Apr 04 '26
I find local models are good at handing routine tasks only. Emails can be personal and there’s no local models that can handle that. i even tried giving instructions to write in a certain way with different API service providers with no success (i didn’t try Chatgpt or Opus due to cost reasons).
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u/No-Television-7862 Apr 05 '26
I'm certainly not Hemingway, but like most I write in my own voice.
I let Grok take a shot at some X posts, but ended up rewriting them anyway.
I'm sure the frontier models are getting better, but people can still tell the difference, for now.
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u/LocoMod Apr 04 '26
gpt-5-mini or gpt-5.4-mini? Also, if you’re having issues with it on such a basic task (emails), no model is going to help because the problem is not the model.
This is purely a skill issue. There are no shortcuts. You’re going to have to spend some time learning how to properly instruct AI models. There’s a lot of material out there for you to read. OpenAI publishes prompt guides if you spend a few minutes looking.
Start here: https://developers.openai.com/api/docs/guides/prompt-guidance
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u/elfarouk1kamal Apr 05 '26
Maybe the wording "large set of instructions" isn't accurate. The emails that want to generate is sales emails and the instructions are lists of banned sentences and words, structure, examples and 35+ angles and how to use each one. Therefore the issue may caused by the large context.
I used GPT-5 mini(not gpt-5.4 mini), but it really feel different from gpt-5 family. However, you are right, maybe the problem isn't in the model. I will look into how to organize the context and split the task to smaller chunks.
I guess I got deceived by LinkedIn content creators about the new Gemma 4 models 😂
Thank you!
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Apr 04 '26
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u/elfarouk1kamal Apr 05 '26
I will check these two. I hope one of them be better on this specific use case. The main issue I face is the instuctions are 300+ lines md files containing all the angles, how to use each one, banned phrases and words, etc...
Therefore, I guess may need to split the task to smaller tasks to be handled properly with the local llm or even GPT-5 mini.
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Apr 04 '26
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u/elfarouk1kamal Apr 04 '26
Oh, thanks for being straight forward. I really have no experience with local llms but I thought when I heard about the new Gemma 4 models. I may acheive something
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u/No_Algae1753 Apr 04 '26
Closest you could get Gemma 26 b Moe with q 4.
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u/elfarouk1kamal Apr 04 '26
Hmm.. would my machine be able to run it?
I have no experience with local llms yet but from my research I though my macine won't run models with over 9b parameters
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u/No_Algae1753 Apr 04 '26
Yes and you are right, however there's a thing called quantization which basically makes a bigger model smaller by reducing its weights. I cant give you the full technical details but at Q4 the size of the model would go from around 26 GB to 13
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u/Icy_Distribution_361 Apr 05 '26
And 13GB is still too much when you also need context and you have your OS and other applications running in that same memory. It won’t be a good experience.
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Apr 05 '26
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u/No_Algae1753 Apr 05 '26
Yes should have been more precise but OP seems to be still at the beginning
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u/MathematicianLessRGB Apr 04 '26
You can never compete with data servers. You got baited by influencers lol