I measure how fast 42 LLMs actually answer. Here's the honest method.

I test software for a living. So when a vendor calls an AI model "fast," I don't trust the word. I measure it. Most leaderboards rank how smart a model is. Almost none rank how fast it answers. You pick a model because it scored well, ship it, and then your users sit and wait. Speed is two different numbers. People mix them up constantly. The two numbers Time to first token (TTFT). The wait before the first word appears. You feel this every time a chatbot "thinks" before replying....