Testbench — 10 Articles on SpecPicks

All SpecPicks articles in the Testbench category — benchmarks, buying guides, and in-depth hardware analysis. Browse the full archive →

• CompactFlash as a Win98 Boot Drive: Transcend CF133 + IDE Adapter Walkthrough — Build a silent, fast Win98 SE retro PC by swapping the IDE platter for a Transcend CF133 CompactFlash card. Full walkthrough… 2026-06-17 · 9 min read
• Self-Host Immich on a Ryzen 5 5600G Mini-PC: Power, Storage, Real Throughput — A Ryzen 5 5600G mini-PC handles Immich for a household library cleanly. Here's the BOM, the real throughput numbers, and the storage… 2026-06-17 · 10 min read
• Aider vs Cline vs Continue.dev for Local Coding on an RTX 3060 (2026) — Aider, Cline, and Continue.dev all run on a 12GB RTX 3060 in 2026, but they optimize for different workflows and have very different token… 2026-06-17 · 9 min read
• Copilot Cowork Goes Usage-Based: The Local-Rig Cost Case in 2026 — Metered Copilot Cowork billing changes the math on local AI coding. We work the BOM, the break-even, and the honest cases where a budget… 2026-06-17 · 9 min read
• GLM-5.2's 37k-Token Reasoning Outputs and What They Mean for Local Rigs — GLM-5.2 averages ~37k output tokens per task — a 4-7x jump over GLM-5.1. Here's why that hits 12GB GPUs hardest and how to size a local… 2026-06-17 · 9 min read
• LLM VRAM Requirements by Model in 2026: What Fits 12GB, 24GB, 48GB — How much VRAM you actually need for local LLMs in 2026, broken down by model size, quantization level, and context length — with concrete… 2026-06-17 · 11 min read
• 3dfx Voodoo3 3000 PCI vs Voodoo5 5500 AGP: Win98 Performance Synthesis (2026) — Voodoo3 3000 PCI vs Voodoo5 5500 AGP: benchmark synthesis across Quake III, UT99, and 3DMark on Win98 SE, with 2026 used-market pricing… 2026-05-13 · 18 min read
• AI-Driven Win9x Driver Install: How Vision-LLMs Tame Vintage Installers (2026) — How vision-LLMs automate Win9x driver installs in 2026 — click-loop architecture, Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs Qwen2.5-VL, $0.05/install cost, and… 2026-05-13 · 18 min read
• Qwen 3.6 35B-A3B on RTX 3060 12GB: Local LLM Throughput Guide (2026) — Running Qwen 3.6 35B-A3B on an RTX 3060 12GB with llama.cpp in 2026 — q4_K_M quantization, 8-15 tok/s via CPU offload, MTP speedups, and… 2026-05-13 · 18 min read
• Jetson Orin Nano Super for Local LLM: 7B/13B Tokens-per-Second Reality Check — On Llama 3.2 7B Q4_K_M the Jetson Orin Nano Super delivers 12-14 tok/s in 25W MAXN_SUPER mode at 24W wall draw. 13B works only at Q3 with… 2026-05-01 · 15 min read