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MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max

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Re: MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max

#391

Post by dagmx »

klabb3 wrote: post #133
pixelesque wrote: post #29

Interesting that they're showing VFX/CG software (Autodesk MAYA and Foundry Nuke) so prominently - obviously people using "Pro" machines are the target audience for this, but both of those apps (any many others in the industry) use Qt for the interface, rather than being totally platform-native.

Contrary to HN popular belief, there are neither incentives nor benefits to building native ui apps, for neither consumer nor professional apps. The exception is apps that only make sense on a single platform, such as window management and other deep integration. On iOS/macos you have a segment of indie/smaller apps that capture a niche market of powerusers for things like productivity apps. But the point is it makes…

Qt delegates to native UI in a lot of cases. I think a lot of people who rail against native UI fail to delineate between native UI and first party frameworks. Using third party frameworks, even cross platform ones, does not mean you lose out on native UI elements.

Re: MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max

#392

Post by kllrnohj »

stanmancan wrote: post #250
CrazyStat wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not cheap, though. Two weeks ago I bought a computer with a similar form factor (GMKtec G10). Worse CPU and GPU but same 16GB memory and a larger SSD for 40% the price of a base mac mini ($239 vs $599). It came with Windows preinstalled, but I immediately wiped that to install linux. Even a used (M-series) mac mini is substantially more expensive. It will cost me about an extra penny per day in electricity costs…

It's cheap for what you get. If you just need "a small box to make API calls and do minimal local processing" you an also just buy a RPI for a fraction of the price of the GMKtec G10. All 3 serve a different purpose; just because you can buy a slower machine for less doesn't mean the price:performance of the M1 Mac Mini changes.

> you an also just buy a RPI for a fraction of the price of the GMKtec G10.

Sadly not really. The Pi 5 8gb canakit starter set, which feels like a more true price since it's including power supply, MicroSD card, and case, is now $210. The pi5 8gb by itself is $135.

A 16gb pi5 kit, to match just the RAM capacity to say nothing of the difference in storage {size, speed, quality} and networking, is then also an eye watering $300

Re: MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max

#393

Post by cosmic_cheese »

NetMageSCW wrote: post #255
klabb3 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Contrary to HN popular belief, there are neither incentives nor benefits to building native ui apps, for neither consumer nor professional apps. The exception is apps that only make sense on a single platform, such as window management and other deep integration. On iOS/macos you have a segment of indie/smaller apps that capture a niche market of powerusers for things like productivity apps. But the point is it makes…

Strong disagree. I think Microsoft’s decision to wrap web apps for the desktop is one of the stupidest they have ever made. It provides poor user experience, uses more battery power and needs more memory and CPU to be performant and creates inconsistencies and wierd errors compared to native apps.

The increased adoption of webviews has resulted in a death by a thousand cuts effect on Windows 11 performance. The speed bump that comes from going from an up to date Windows 11 install to a up to date Windows 10 install on the same machine is stunning… W10 is much more snappy in every regard despite being nearly identical functionally speaking.

I won’t try to claim that Electron and friends have no place is software development but we absolutely should be pushing back harder against stuffing it everywhere it possibly can be.

Re: MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max

#394

Post by bsimpson »

bombcar wrote: post #368
bsimpson wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a magical window at Google where you could be issued an iMac Pro 5k. (To this day, the standard issue monitor is still 1440p.) ~9 years later, there are a lot of people still using it as their main machine, waiting until we get kicked off the corp network for lack of software support.

Was that one of the ones that could do "target display mode" and become a monitor for another machine?

Nope - they removed that feature, so now come the end of the year, they're all e-waste.

It feels really stupid to have to throw away a perfectly capable machine with 64GB of RAM in 2026.

Re: MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max

#395

Post by maherbeg »

Tangokat wrote: post #5

"Scaling up performance from M5 and offering the same breakthrough GPU architecture with a Neural Accelerator in each core, M5 Pro and M5 Max deliver up to 4x faster LLM prompt processing than M4 Pro and M4 Max, and up to 8x AI image generation than M1 Pro and M1 Max." Are they doubling down on local LLMs then? I still think Apple has a huge opportunity in privacy first LLMs but so far I'm not seeing much execution.…

Honestly, they can keep waiting for another year or two for on-device models at the size they're looking for to be powerful enough.

Re: MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max

#396

Post by jsheard »

sgt wrote: post #373
jsheard wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s $400 to go from 16GB to 32GB. No change from the previous models then, 16GB->32GB was already $400. They're cutting into their previously enormous margins to keep the prices stable, rather than hiking the prices to maintain their margins.

In practice, you can really go a long way on 16GB on a Mac with unified memory. I like to say it's comparable to 32GB during the old Intel days.

RAM is still RAM, the switch from crusty HDDs to fast NVMe SSDs may have helped to smooth things over when you spill into swap but it's not going to do miracles.

Re: MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max

#397

Post by hu3 »

satvikpendem wrote: post #150
hu3 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about real workloads? Because as context gets larger, these local LLMs aproxiate the useless end of the spectrum with regards to t/s.

That should be covered by the harness rather than the LLM itself, no? Compaction and summarization should be able to allow the LLM to still run smoothly even on large contexts.

Sometimes it really needs a lot of data to work.

Re: MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max

#398

Post by hu3 »

vile_wretch wrote: post #148
hu3 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It did change. They bumped $200 on the entire line. So even the 16GB version is more expensive. I'd love to have customers like Apple. Bumps $200: "it didn't change!!!" And no power adapter included.

The EU forbids them from including power adapters. They're still included everywhere else.

I can buy a laptop right now close to home and it comes with power adapter.

Re: MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max

#399

Post by zffr »

heurs wrote: post #131

Honest question. Is it possible to install an earlier version of macOS on these machines? Liquid glass looks so.. unprofessional to my eyes. And I hear it's also unstable.

Yes. This page has several ways to get older macOS versions: https://support.apple.com/en-us/102662, but the earliest macOS version you can use on Apple Silicon is macOS 11.

If you move your home directory to a different disk partition, you can even share it between two different macOS versions!

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