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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

#581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

14-billion parameter model with 4-bit quantization seems rather small

For anyone who has been watching Apple since the iPod commercials, Apple really really has grey area in the honesty of their marketing. And not even diehard Apple fanboys deny this. I genuinely feel bad for people who fall for their marketing thinking they will run LLMs. Oh well, I got scammed on runescape as a child when someone said they could trim my armor... Everyone needs to learn.

There used to be a polite way to call this out, the "Steve Jobs's reality distortion field".

Re: MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max

#583
post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's the same shit every year for the past 5 years with the M line. 2010 to 2015 was a major improvement, 2015 to 2020 was a major improvement, now they pretty much solved the computer/laptop problem for 99% of people. I'm on a 16gb m1 air, I see absolutely no reason to update.

Watch this video if you have time: https://youtu.be/6AtTk3XoQVs TL;DW: 2010s intel mac era laptops have seen at very best 35% single core CPU performance over in 5 years time! This happens almost every year now with M line macs. Rant: Retina macs were great and had great form factor over unibody macs. Touch-bar macs in the mid 2010s was IMHO a disaster. Terrible keyboard, poorer thermal capacity, missing essential po…

> Upgrades sometimes were total jokes, because of thermal throttling there was no point to put more hardware than it could work with.

Part of this has to be blamed on Apple, as the chassis designer and system integrator. Intel did not force them to put an i9 in the 16" MBP, Apple made that decision. Even now, Apple refuses to use the old Touchbar chassis for anything other than passively-cooled base model chips. It's a tacit admission that they know the design failed; it probably would still suck with Pro and Max chips inside them.

The paper-thin unibody, Butterfly keyboard and Touchbar were all unpopular features, but Apple shipped them anyways. It really shouldn't take 4+ years to respond to critical design flaws, especially if you're a trillion-dollar business.

Re: MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max

#584

I chased down what the "4x faster at AI tasks" was measuring: > Testing conducted by Apple in January 2026 using preproduction 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Air systems with Apple M5, 10-core CPU, 10-core GPU, 32GB of unified memory, and 4TB SSD, and production 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Air systems with Apple M4, 10-core CPU, 10-core GPU, 32GB of unified memory, and 2TB SSD. Time to first token measured with an 8K-to…

Topical. My hobby project this week (0) has been hyper-optimizing microgpt for M5's CPU cores (and comparing to MLX performance). Wonder if anything changes under the regime I've been chasing with these new chips.

0: https://entrpi.github.io/eemicrogpt/

Re: MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max

#585

I love the following section of their copy: > Even More Value for Upgraders > The new 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max mark a major leap for pro users. There’s never been a better time for customers to upgrade from a previous generation of MacBook Pro with Apple silicon or an Intel-based Mac. I read as "Whoops we made the M1 Macbook Pro too good, please upgrade!" I think I will get another 2-5 years…

My 32gb m1 max was probably the best purchase I've made. Still plenty of headroom in performance left in this beast. Wonder what reason they'll use to end software support in the future. Bet it'll be some security hardware they make up for the sake of forcing upgrades.

Agreed - I was just picking mine up from a repair at the Apple Store - they replaced the top case as the keyboard was borked, found a logic issue and replaced the board. It's as good as new, and its already lasted longer than any Mac I've ever owned. I want for nothing, although I wouldn't mind double the RAM and SSD. It's the perfect laptop.

Re: MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max

#587

TL;DR Is this major change, or just incrimental? Just about to be time for me to get a new laptop. Typically I buy a generation behind, but want to make sure I won't miss anything huge.

Incremental. If you want a major change, the M6 MBP is rumoured to launch towards the end of the year. It's expected to bring a new design and an OLED touchscreen.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-02-24/apple-s-t... (https://archive.ph/qT3QV)

Re: MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max

#588
The definitive reasons why you should NOT buy these products.

1. While the hardware and performance are amazing, the user interface is the opposite. Imagine buying a luxury car with amazing performance only to find that simply opening the door is a royal pain, each and every time.

2. Apple will downgrade the usability over time. A year from now, or two, Apple will downgrade your user experience. Imagine that in your luxury car you can see out the windshield, but the dealer insists that you install a new upgrade with a heads-up-display that cannot be turned off.

3. Apple will degrade the performance of your system over time by constantly introducing more features which require better hardware. Your sleek and fast computer will eventually become unusably slow.

4. Apple profits from preventing you from using the computer you own with other software, for example Linux. When your computer cannot run Mac OS (see #3) above or you get sick of the "features" (see #1 and #2 above), you will not be able to do so. The reason for this is if you could try Linux, there is is a strong possibility you will see just how user unfriendly Mac OS is and never go back.

5. You care about the environmental impact of your purchasing decisions. You understand that because you are not able to upgrade the hardware and operating system, your purchase is very likely to end up in a landfill.

Re: MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max

#589

I chased down what the "4x faster at AI tasks" was measuring: > Testing conducted by Apple in January 2026 using preproduction 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Air systems with Apple M5, 10-core CPU, 10-core GPU, 32GB of unified memory, and 4TB SSD, and production 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Air systems with Apple M4, 10-core CPU, 10-core GPU, 32GB of unified memory, and 2TB SSD. Time to first token measured with an 8K-to…

Like saying my PC boots up 2x faster so it must be 2x more powerful. lol
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