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New Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra

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Re: New Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra

#241

Post by freehorse »

addaon wrote: post #219
osmukka wrote: post #179

Reading this press release was almost physically painful, because of how much Apple loves to use the phrase "up to". In total it appears 46 times.

A lot of those "up to"s are expressing user options, though -- "up to" 512 GB RAM means that there are configurations that include that, but also cheaper configurations that don't. That's a pretty different beast than "up to 4.3x faster performance", which means (presumably) that exactly one benchmark showed a 4.3x improvement and the rest showed less -- which is to say, means very little.

Except for the prices of course, where they use “starting at 5,499$” instead of “up to 18,299$” to indicate user options.

Re: New Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra

#242

Post by brabel »

doctoboggan wrote: post #202

> Apple’s most powerful Mac raises the bar for local AI Wow, "Local AI" mentioned in the subheading above the fold - it's really awesome to see Apple leaning into this use case and I think it will definitely pay off for them going forward. Fingers crossed Apple is able to put some engineering effort towards shipping with one of the frontier open weight models included and optimized exactly for the machine.

The local ai is used by Apple services, mostly. Though there is a Swift SDK to access it, apparently.

Re: New Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra

#243

Post by dannyw »

AbsurdCensor wrote: post #29
tarr11 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is unified ram? RAM and VRAM as one thing?

Big ole pool of very fast ram that can be accessed by the CPU and GPU. Lets you run larger models. AMD does the same thing with Strix Halo. I have a 128gb machine at home, and have had difficulties running 120b models, but 70b and below run pretty well.

AMD Strix Halo unified memory still requires allocating X to GPU, x to CPU at UEFI.

So not as flexible as apple's unified memory.

Re: New Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra

#244

Post by zer00eyz »

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.

Im writing this from a MacBook Air.

Everything is a container or VM now, and none of it runs locally for me.

I have a desktop (older intel) with giant monitors and a keyboard for when I sit at the desk. I have the laptop for when I travel, go out or just want to work from the couch.

When I do my next upgrade to "better hardware" I'm not migrating a machine, rather I'm migrating the containers. My workflow is such that if I loose one of the boxes I sit at to a cup of coffee I really wont care other than the financial loss of a new laptop or keyboard.

The biggest win in all this was dumping the off the shelf firewall/router and moving to Opnsense. Wireguard vpn lets me route all my traffic through home for all my devices (and what is now a growing home lab).

There are scopes of work that this setup would not work for. I would not want to be a video editor with this set up, it's not ideal if you want to play AAA games. But for what I do, it is pretty ideal.

Re: New Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra

#245

Post by [deleted] »

mikestew wrote: post #113
cj wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your computer never leaves your desk, the iMac is pretty competitive with those features. Even comes with a TouchID keyboard.

I’ve had iMacs for almost 20 years. My last one was indeed my last. Without target display mode (use the Mac as a monitor), I’m ditching a perfectly good monitor. I was going to buy a Mac Studio and a good monitor to replace the iMac until the spouse reminded me that we are now retired and will spend time in a camper. So a MBP for me (and BenQ’s Mac-specific monitor), but others might do well to consider a Mac Mini/S…

[deleted]

Re: New Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra

#246

Post by hebelehubele »

dannyw wrote: post #125
alberth wrote: post #30

It looks like speculation that Apple would raise the base chip’s maximum RAM from 32GB to 48GB was wrong. Apple also launched the base M6 today with a 32GB RAM limit, suggesting 512GB may remain the maximum for Ultra chips for some time. Since these Ultra chips combine 16 base chips: 32GB × 16 = 512GB

They probably literally don't have enough NAND to go around. 768GB of memory (48GB x 16) is enough for nearly 100 iPhone 17s; that's $80k (corrected) of iPhones at MSRP, although likely much lower margins than these high-RAM boxes.

800 USD/iPhone x 100 iPhones = 80k USD

Re: New Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra

#247

Post by fwip »

alfanick wrote: post #239
zirkonit wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Up to 47.

That would be oddly precise. More like "up to 50", or depending on speaker, "up to 100". /s

It would also be incorrect. "Up to" doesn't mean any possible upper bound, it describes the top of a known range. I can't say a car I'm selling goes "up to" 900mph if it tops out at 120mph.

Re: New Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra

#248

Post by msdz »

matt-p wrote: post #211
msdz wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I can somewhat speak to this, as I actually did this for a while c. 2021 and 2022. The issue (apart from my Mac mini still having the old, bigger form factor back then) is that this requires a full shutdown (obviously), and that is more friction than opening a closed laptop lid. It just takes a moment for every app and background service etc. to settle back in after, and depending on how your brain works, you migh…

I think it's actually good to have a forced reboot from time to time, but then I'm not very disciplined in closing stuff I'm no-longer using! Especially like docker containers I was using months ago, that I forgot to shutdown.

Yeah, I agree (with the same unfortunate habit) – but up to twice a day of forced work full stop is overdoing it, too.

Re: New Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra

#249

Post by msdz »

mettamage wrote: post #214
msdz wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I can somewhat speak to this, as I actually did this for a while c. 2021 and 2022. The issue (apart from my Mac mini still having the old, bigger form factor back then) is that this requires a full shutdown (obviously), and that is more friction than opening a closed laptop lid. It just takes a moment for every app and background service etc. to settle back in after, and depending on how your brain works, you migh…

What if you have some battery system working? Then technically, you could travel with it

And imagine plugging a small iPad screen into the thing with sidecar… Almost like a Macbook!

Re: New Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra

#250

Post by hugmynutus »

OneWhereWhy wrote: post #174

The thing that intrigues me the most is this: "Storage performance is up to twice as fast, with a next-generation SSD architecture built on PCIe Gen 6..." This is the first personal computer I've noticed that has PCIe Gen 6 storage. I've only seen enterprise PCIe Gen 6 SSDs up until now. Gen 5 SSDs in consumer devices already have high temperatures and thermal throttling, so I'm worried about how Apple's implementati…

Apple puts the NAND flash controller on package, so it cooled as part of the SoC/CPU as they share an IHS. Given it is part of the fabric it only has to maintain signal coherence on millimeter to micrometer scales, while enterprise/consumer NAND PCIe have to adhere to standards which force them to signal at 800-1200mV and keep that signal stable for centimeter scale distances.

Basically, Apple gets to cheat because they shove everyone onto the same IC & make the OS that runs on this SOC.

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