Ai Inference Efficiency

California – November 02, 2026 -- A local-inference benchmark on an AMD Strix Halo machine found that gemma-3-27b delivers a correct answer for 729 joules at 98% accuracy, while the faster, leaner trinity-nano needs 1,004 joules at 39% accuracy.

The test covered 27 local models on 190 small tasks with checkable answers, each run under two prompts, with a power meter running. Energy was priced at California summer rates of 34 cents per kilowatt-hour off-peak and 58 cents on-peak. The rank correlation between energy per token and energy per correct answer is +0.27, close to no relationship.