New Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra • Hacker News Board

Re: New Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra

#131

Post by isgb » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 2:29 PM UTC

mschuster91 wrote: post #94

fearmerchant wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way the Apple M-series does ram that might be difficult to pull off.

> The way the Apple M-series does ram that might be difficult to pull off. Well it might be an idea to keep the layout of the mainboard and connectors the same. That way, instead of having to upgrade the whole machine, all it would need is a new mainboard. Framework for example managed to pull that off, and in mobile at that, where constraints are much worse than for a desktop computer.

> Framework for example managed to pull that off, and in mobile at that, where constraints are much worse than for a desktop computer.

It's not the same thing though. On the M-series, CPU and GPU share a unified memory architecture and ram is much more tightly coupled to get it to go faster. A closer example would be the Framework desktop, actually, where memory is also soldered in for the same reason.

Re: New Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra

#132

Post by mikestew » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 2:29 PM UTC

mrala wrote: post #63

nine_k wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To put this into a perspective, Google helpfully reminds: > A fully configured IBM Personal Computer AT (Model 5170) with expanded memory and storage cost around $5,795 to $6,000 at its launch in August 1984, which equals roughly $18,600 to $19,300 in 2026 USD.

It would be interesting to compare the costs of a top of the line machine every decade or so. Costs were steadily decreasing until recently.

John Dvorak said many, many decades ago (80s/90s) that the computer you want will always cost $3000. That statement has been more/less true for some time periods than others, but with some wiggle room I’ve found it to be accurate enough.

Care to guess the approximate price of the MBP I bought earlier this year?

Re: New Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra

#133

Post by jillesvangurp » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 2:31 PM UTC

intrasight wrote: post #22

It seems super reasonably priced to me. It's only twice as expensive as my first Mac which only had 128K of memory.

Depends on your perspective. People think nothing of spending 50-100K on a car that basically gets them to work. But the thing they use for day to day work then gets the evil eye when it costs more than 1K. It's slightly irrational. Not everybody needs a high end mac. But when you do, it sure is nice that you can get one.

I don't actually own a car and my startup is bootstrapped and our salaries are modest. But the one thing we spend on is laptops. I have M4 max pro with 48GB. That thing was on the expensive side (~4.5Kish). But it delivers a lot of value and I spend most hours I'm awake using it. I like fast builds. I like that I can try out open source AI models. And I like just having the option to run those.

We actually lease them and mine costs something like 105 euro/month. Including Apple Care. I don't need a Mac Studio but I could see some roles where that would not be a crazy expense. Even the tricked out version that basically only costs the same as a very modest car.

Re: New Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra

#134

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 2:33 PM UTC

blints wrote: post #62

dist-epoch wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 10 grand for 256GB memory. A NVIDIA RTX 6000, 96 GB at 1.7 TB/s, is 13 grand. This 256 GB at 1.2 TB/s Mac is extremely competitive, it will be sold out everywhere.

The relevant comparison isn't one mac studio to one RTX 6000, it's a 24 channel DDR5 system, which also has ~1.2TB/s of memory bandwidth (or more when Xeon 6 compatible 8800mt/s memory becomes widely available), vastly higher prefill due to more CPU horsepower, orders of magnitude faster networking, can hook into GPU accelerators, can be upgraded etc. A baseline 384GB system from eg Puget is ~30K vs ~12K for the 256G…

[deleted]

Re: New Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra

#135

Post by vadansky » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 2:33 PM UTC

Sorry for being lazy, but is there a rough breakdown like "You get sonnet level for M5 and Opus for M5 pro, etc.", or is it still speculative. Or put simpler, do you get Opus level for the 256GB M5 Max?

Re: New Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra

#136

Post by herpdyderp » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 2:33 PM UTC

joshstrange wrote: post #7

Due to pricing insanity (not that Apple prices weren’t insane before the ram/ssd shortages) I’m not in the market but I do wonder if my next computer should be a Mac Studio instead of a MBP that lives its life docked. Might be better to just run a Studio and Neo for the very few times I actually need remote capabilities.

This is my setup (except I have an Air because the Neo didn't exist yet). And it's great. Tailscale makes it trivial.

Re: New Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra

#137

Post by willtemperley » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 2:34 PM UTC

meerita wrote: post #2

Mac Studio with M5 Max starts at $2,499 (U.S.) and $2,299 (U.S.) for education. Additional configure-to-order options are available at apple.com/mac-studio. Mac Studio with M5 Ultra starts at $5,499 (U.S.) and $5,099 (U.S.). I am in Europe, and the Mac Studio M5 Ultra GPU 64 cores with 96GB RAM is up to 6.649,00 €. Ouch.

> I am in Europe, and the Mac Studio M5 Ultra GPU 64 cores with 96GB RAM is up to 6.649,00 €. Ouch.

It would be significantly cheaper to fly to a tariff-free country and buy there.

Re: New Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra

#138

Post by ogrisel » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 2:34 PM UTC

code-blooded wrote: post #92

joshstrange wrote: post #7

Due to pricing insanity (not that Apple prices weren’t insane before the ram/ssd shortages) I’m not in the market but I do wonder if my next computer should be a Mac Studio instead of a MBP that lives its life docked. Might be better to just run a Studio and Neo for the very few times I actually need remote capabilities.

What CPU / GPU combination would you recommend? Can use unified host+device memory?

Re: New Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra

#139

Post by jasode » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 2:35 PM UTC

joshstrange wrote: post #7

Due to pricing insanity (not that Apple prices weren’t insane before the ram/ssd shortages) I’m not in the market but I do wonder if my next computer should be a Mac Studio instead of a MBP that lives its life docked. Might be better to just run a Studio and Neo for the very few times I actually need remote capabilities.

>I do wonder if my next computer should be a Mac Studio instead of a MBP that lives its life docked.

Having owned 3 MacBook Pros since 2008, the decision to make my next computer be a Mac Studio came down to (1) MacBook thermal throttling that slows down CPUs when it starts to overheat and (2) easier upgrade of Mac Studio SSD with after-market storage module whereas the MacBook requires more complicated disassembly and hot air gun to dislodge the surface mounted SSDs.

I have a brand new M5 Pro MacBook Pro I don't like it when the fans turn on. The Mac Studio will be faster and quieter for the same workloads.

Re: New Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra

#140

Post by notnullorvoid » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 2:35 PM UTC

Zylokloto wrote: post #99

notnullorvoid wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It needs to be a little less than double the overall price for 256GB option, otherwise it's better to get 2 256GB and link them.

you can't link onchip memory.

True, but you can link them up over thunderbolt or Ethernet. If your goal is to run local LLMs, not all weights need to live on the same computer. You can segment the workload by layers and pass the activations along the lower bandwidth interconnect with a small perf penalty. Also you get double the CPU/GPU cores allowing for better multi user/agent performance.