An empirical study of small local models across reasoning, extraction and writing on a 4 GB RTX 3050, plus three routing signals — oracle upper bound, self-consistency, and feedback escalation — that turn a small model into a dispatcher.

We pushed a 4 GB laptop model past coding into reasoning, extraction and writing to find its limit — then measured a better use for it entirely: not doing the work, but routing it. A reasoning-tuned 1.7B model covers 90% of a general workload, and a perfect router is 74% cheaper at equal quality.

Tag: Routing

Tag: Routing

The Small Model's Real Job Is Dispatch, Not Work