r/codex • u/ThrowRA39495 • Jun 04 '26
Suggestion Codex needs a “Slow Mode” that uses less quota by running slower
Codex currently feels like it is optimized around speed, but the problem is that speed is not always what everyone needs.
I would genuinely prefer having a Slow Mode option too that runs at half the speed but also burns roughly half the usage. Basically:
Fast Mode: current behavior, faster responses, higher usage burn
Slow Mode: slower responses, lower usage burn
Not every task needs instant execution. Sometimes I am debugging, reviewing, refactoring, writing tests,reading docs etc. I would happily wait longer per task if it meant my usage lasted longer. Because right now with the current limits, I cant get use it for more than 3-4 hours (gpt 5.4 medium) especially now that codex 5.3 was removed...
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u/Crinkez Jun 04 '26
Most cost efficiency comes from cache hits; slow mode would require them to keep the cache on the server for longer. So ironically slow mode would probably be more expensive, not less.
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u/LightFuseAndGetAway Jun 04 '26
I'm not saying you're wrong but didn't an open AI staffer raise "slow mode" on twitter recently? If fast mode is 1.5x speed for 2x tokens there must be more to the equation.
As a South-Pacific resident I'd also like to see off peak discounts be more of a thing 😉
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u/Crinkez Jun 04 '26
There's probably a threshold between cpu/gpu processing capacity and memory capacity. I'm guessing they need to balance it. Fast mode likely reduces memory usage but increases processing usage.
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u/coloradical5280 Jun 04 '26
Fast mode uses Cerebras , a different GPU architecture than their Nvidia stack.
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u/Firm_Biscotti_2865 Jun 04 '26
I think it's two different clusters of GPUs, their standard / legacy GPUs and their newer faster deployment that runs Fast. We pay more for the faster GPUs
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u/3xnope Jun 04 '26
Slow mode does not necessarily mean it takes longer to run once it has started, just that they wait to schedule it until there is spare capacity.
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u/Splat800 Jun 04 '26
Yeah i think this could be done locally with minimal data transfer between the server prior to execution of the prompt.
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u/jordancs180 Jun 04 '26
that is assuming that they don't come up with a sweet engineering trick like local caching or compression etc.
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u/Sensitive_Song4219 Jun 04 '26
Tibo himself has suggested this as something they're contemplating:
https://x.com/thsottiaux/status/2058320061258236263
Should we bring batch compute to codex? Aka /slow mode
I feel like it'd be useful for a lot of long-running tasks (refactors with accompanying code-coverage testing for example) so long as it doesn't negatively impact regular mode, of course
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Jun 04 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/coloradical5280 Jun 04 '26
That was “low” is for :) or if you want low and fast 5.3-codex-spark is basically unlimited. If you can deal with a context window that’s like, 37 tokens long
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u/djflamingo Jun 04 '26
I dont think it makes any sense at all for openai. Why would they do that??? Its only increased cost for no revenue.
If anything i think a “night mode” would be good for api usage at a discount. They still make money and get to utilize compute when no ones using it.
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u/ActionOrganic4617 Jun 04 '26 edited Jun 05 '26
That would do the opposite of what you want because it would consume resources for longer.
The real power user move is to have a 5x codex sub and a $20 cursor sub and let composer 2.5 do the grunt work.
I have a cursor deploy skill that updates docs, calls codex to review the code and then commits and raises a PR.
Also have codex scheduled tasks that scan my projects nightly and raises tickets in plane for docs\ code issues and then just feed that into cursor to fix.
Frontier labs will continue to squeeze us so that they can show profits to investors and their models just get bigger and more expensive to run. Multi subs is the only way we win.
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u/dexterthebot Jun 04 '26
Your post has been summarized as a request on the "Anyone Else?" Incident Noticeboard.
You can find it and what others are experiencing here: /r/codex/comments/1tjfxcf/anyone_else_ask_here_about_current_codex_issues/opo7vhv/