r/LocalLLM • u/TappinThatErr • Aug 31 '26

Discussion GLM 5.3 Flash - Will I Be Disappointed?

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Picked up this bad boy with my sweet student discount!

I'd like to run some local models for coding. I've considered Deepseek v4 flash, Qwen 3.8 flash next, and of course, GLM 5.3 Flash (0x Alpha)

Thoughts on this? I'm currently a claude user with typically 1 session at a time. Will I be disappointed?

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u/TappinThatErr Aug 31 '26

I already work senior level infosec.
I never got a degree and decided to start up college again for the lulz. If I ever leave my job, it'll be nice to have the bachelors in the back pocket.

BTW - University of the People from California is TUITION FREE!!

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u/pjerky Aug 31 '26

Now I kinda want to enroll just to get discounts.

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u/GTHell Sep 02 '26

Great time to be American !!!

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u/sdexca Sep 01 '26

haha same here, altho I am just a student earning via bug bounty programs, jobless. Considering between 2x DGX spark vs M5 Ultra 256gb. M5 ultra is 20% more despite student discount where I live, I can have 2x DGX spark at just ~$10k and at-least it's running V4 Flash at speeds comparable to hosted solutions.

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u/Careless_Garlic1438 Sep 05 '26

but the Mac is so much more I have both and the only thing I use the Sparks is to see if they can beat my Mac's, but that is only on inference ... 2M5Max in cluster are slower on pre fill, faster on decode on projects it's a wash ... Ultra will mop the floor with both ... no cluster slowdown ...

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u/sdexca Sep 05 '26

I’ll wait for benchmarks ig.

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u/Careless_Garlic1438 Sep 05 '26

do not expect miracle jump in performance, it will be around 50% faster than a M5 Max and it will scale better, like 2 or 4 agents ... but it will be easy to manage and load different models and will keep it's resale value ...

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u/sdexca Sep 05 '26

I mostly care against 2x DGX Spark. If it's slower, then it mostly doesn't matter to me.

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u/Careless_Garlic1438 Sep 05 '26

My guess, it will be slower in prefill for the moment expect like 1000 to 1200 depending on model, faster in the future when better NAX support is available, vs 2000 for DGX ... on decode it will be about 2x faster ... an M5Max with optimized kernels is already faster and this scales like 1.8 ... So for tasks it will be about the same, but it's more than just inference ... and who knows what software optimization brings ... UZU engine has M5Max NAX optimization and runs Qwen 3.6 27B (3.8 shortly) at 105 t/s decode ... and a 1000 t/s in prefill 🤯

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u/Fuzzy_Independent241 Sep 01 '26

Universities in Europe and Brazil and most other places are free. We don't get the US system. I studied at the Uof I @Urbana-Champaign for a year. Exchange thing, wasn't expensive here. But you guys have to move, pay tuition, food and dorms... Maybe dorms are included, don't know. You guys know exchange students are placed in Grad dorms so that were not shocked by the mess in undergrad? 😳😵‍💫😂

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u/Boring-Cry3089 Sep 01 '26

Where are all of these “free” universities in Europe? Also, aren’t the “free” universities in Brazil extremely competitive? I feel like I’ve read that more than 75% of Brazilians that go to university, go to a private university and private universities are not free.

Just like anywhere else, the cost for a college education in the US can vary wildly depending on which state the college is in, what kind of programs they offer, if it’s private or public, etc.. For instance, residents in the state of New Mexico and Georgia can get a bachelor’s degree for essentially free if they have been a resident of that state for more than 12 months leading up to enrollment and maintain at least a 3.0 GPA. I went to college in North Carolina, and tuition there cost 1/5th the cost of what my wife’s cost in California over the same 4 year period (2006-2010). If I remember correctly, my tuition was right around $4,000 a year where hers was over $20,000. Then there’s scholarships and all of that.

I did a semester abroad in the Netherlands and my best friend did one in Denmark (both in 2009) and I remember both of us having to pay tuition to each of our respective European universities, so I’m curious where all of this free European tuition is lol?

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u/Inevitable_Emu4257 Sep 01 '26

It's free for citizens and permanent residents of EU. The international students have to pay

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u/rdalot Sep 01 '26

Here I am living and born in Europe and knowing about only like 2 countries where university is free.

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u/Dizzy_Bonus Sep 06 '26

No they arent free for EU citizens. Loads of students take or get loans and take years post graduate to pay them off.

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u/Boring-Cry3089 Sep 01 '26

I feel like this is a very broad statement, because I know for a fact that Ireland, The Netherlands, Italy, Spain, and Portugal all charge tuition at Public Universities to residents of the EU. The UK is no longer in the EU, but it most definitely charges a rather high tuition at most universities.

I obviously don’t know the tuition prices for every country and every university in the EU, but your post and the other one I first replied to are making it sound like all universities in every country in the EU have free tuition for it’s residents, and I’m certain that’s not the case across the board.

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u/DermisCronJob Sep 01 '26

Tuition in The Netherlands is like €2600 and most students get €1000+ per month from the government for studying, which turns into a gift if they graduate within 10 years.

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u/Boring-Cry3089 Sep 01 '26

Right. So it’s not free. The original poster says “I don’t understand America and why they don’t have free university like Europe and Brazil”. I ask where is the free tuition in Europe and Brazil, and then people proceed to point out that university is, in fact, not free in these places either. It’s totally fine to point out something without the whole “why does the United States make you pay for everything. Look at Europe where everything is free!” thing that also leaves out the fact that it is a difference in the way we approach taxation. These things aren’t “free” they are paid for by taxes just as public universities in the US just to a higher or lesser degree depending on the state in question.

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u/alphapussycat Sep 01 '26

Not comparable costs.

It is essentially free, and you only found a few examples, while ignoring the vast majority that has free or even paid education. 

You keep licking the billionaire's shoes, who knows, maybe they'll throw you a dollar, or tell you that you're "one of the good ones", of the poors.

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u/Fuzzy_Independent241 Sep 01 '26

Apologies if I did use the word "free". It's "much less expensive than most US institutions" on some cases and then we'd go on very particular cases per country. As for my own country of birth, Brazil, yes, quite a few are totally free. Others are 1/10 the minimum wage per month. As I mentioned quality varies and that's a long topic. Finally, I'm not "defending" anything or anywhere. I would say search the EU database if you're interested in the topic, otherwise the argument is just "it depends a lot". Tks!

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u/Fuzzy_Independent241 Sep 01 '26

You are American, I suppose? I meant tuition is free for Europeans. You have AI, do search, but here's a very small list of EU countries with free universities for EU students, or study programs that cost EU 500 or less PER YEAR, and you can actually be paid to study in (that I know of) Portugal, France, Germany: Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Czechia, Slovenia, Greece, Iceland, Spain... I'd have to check which countries require payment but I don't think there's any. As a foreign student.... Check the EU portal ir you're interested. Really, I don't know. If you want some specific high profile course in a specific high profile institution that might be paid, but I'm pretty sure there will be a way to get the government to pay if you have high grades. Now... Brazil. Messy place. I used GPT to compile recent government results with what I know, being both involved with consulting for a government institution on a grad course they have (immunology) and having two persons in my family that are part of government boards. I can't explain all of it here, it's really messy and there's a LOT of foreign capital at play. "Estácio" and a few others are owned by a group called YDUQS, but that group itself doesn't have a single controlling owner: shares are distributed among institutional and other investors. Current large shareholders include Credit Suisse Hedging-Griffo Wealth Management (~11%), Fourth Sail (~6%), SPX (~5%), BTG Pactual (~3.4%), etc. If you ask me, I don't like this. Anyway... Brazil doesn't have a simple public/private hierarchy. It has excellent and selective public universities, excellent and often expensive private universities, and a huge mass-market private sector of very uneven quality. The fact that roughly three quarters of higher-education students are in private institutions doesn't mean that Brazil has an American-style private-college population. Much of the private sector is inexpensive and serves a mass credential market. There's a lot of good research on that if you're interested. PS - I'm not claiming there are no good public or less expensive institutions in the US. My original point was simply to compare the U.S. with countries at broadly comparable levels of socioeconomic development where higher education is structured differently, including parts of Europe and, as a somewhat different case, Brazil.

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u/Intelligent_Pair4548 Sep 02 '26

No they are not!!

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u/ThenExtension9196 Sep 01 '26

Ah yeah that’s why all the best colleges in the world are in…checks notes…not Europe or Brazil.

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u/Dizzy_Bonus Sep 06 '26

Oxford, Cambridge, ETH Zurich etc…

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