Live data from Hacker News

Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra

apple.com

391–400 of 1001 posts

Re: Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra

#391
post #309

I somehow find it better to give 2 frontier model companies 100-200/month than dropping 10 grand on a hardware that will get old in no time with bad TPS. I really want to have a fully local model but seems like one more generation wait and we will be there?

Lots of people use the Mac Mini to run the frontier models over night or while traveling. I have a rack in my basement and have thought about throwing one in. You can get a cheaper machine but Apple feels a little more, “rack and forget,” if you have less price sensitivity. Mac Mini + MacBook Neo w/ ssh can be a better setup than MacBook Pro for many people.

If it’s purely for experimentation then why not the DGX Spark/GB10? It’s up about 10% from release RRP which is quite good (you might argue it was overpriced then, but prosumer and workstation GPU prices are up 100%). 4TB NVMe is not cheap these days - it’d cost at least $500 for a stick - and you get 128GB at a similar bandwidth to an M5 Pro.

Nevermind that Apple still insists on providing base systems with only 512GB of non-upgradable SSD. The equivalent spec mini (4TB/64/10G) is almost $5k for half the VRAM. Not as good a CPU compared to the M5/6 but you also get 20 cores and full CUDA.

Re: Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra

#392
post #161

Leasing now an option, only $50/month (cheaper than inference subscription?), so even cash-poor can go the amortized-investment route. I've often felt there is tremendous value locked up in underutilized old computers. It would be interesting to see Apple in 3 years offering compute as a service using lease returns (or more likely, partnering with someone else to operate it (perhaps exclusively in secondary markets l…

I looked at multiple configurations, and mathed it out. With leasing, you pay ~75% of the capital cost (excl. tax) over 3 years, but end up with no asset. Apple computers tend to have excellent resale value, and Mac Minis/Studios have the least depreciation of them all. I understand the benefits to both taxes and cash flow, but boy is Apple winning big on those lease offers for Studios.

> but end up with no asset

consumer electronics has literally never been an asset.

> Apple computers tend to have excellent resale value

do you think the new leasing category might change that? hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

edit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/LocalLLaMA/comments/1vxzg6v/apple_i...

Re: Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra

#393
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who works in AI now, I have found it pretty amazing that Apple basically didn't do much with AI software, and focused more on the hardware side. I think this is what the future of AI is going to look like, local models run on your mac for your workflow. It's possible that they're working on their own LLM that's going to work very well on their chips, and possibly outperform anything out there when they do…

nth mover advantage.

Has yet to materialise

Re: Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra

#394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's the really inexpensive Neo, of course, but even the M5 laptops are consistently beat on performance and battery life by Intel Windows laptops. Of course you can beat the entry level MacBook Neo by comparing it to larger, more powerful, more expensive laptops. The M5 is an entire family with a range of performance. Intel/AMD have done a lot to improve performance but they’re not beating the high end M5 chips on…

You can also beat the Neo on every measure by comparing it to $700 Windows laptops. https://www.tomshardware.com/laptops/dell-xps-13-2026-review It's also not hard to find a Windows laptop that beats the M5 on battery life. Single-thread performance is the only remaining measure where the M5 is king.

Build quality, keyboard and displays are consistently reviewed as being nicer for the Neo than that price range of windows laptops.

Re: Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra

#397
post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a chance to try Omarchy past few days and it's just very different vs macOS. I honestly never had a problem with the windowing system ever since I built my own customization scripts (i.e. Hammerspoon). I can see the appeal for someone who wants ultimate customization though but macOS still wins overwhelmingly when it comes to polish, ecosystem, user experience, and apps (nothing comes close).

It’s not just Omarchy, there’s really not much out there in the desktop Linux sphere for those who are mostly happy with how macOS works out of the box. Everything is either in a similar vein to the Omarchy setup (hyper-minimal tiling WM), Windows-like (KDE, Cinnamon, most other DEs), or a chimera with a grab bag of design bits from every desktop and mobile platform (GNOME, Pantheon, COSMIC). It’s a bit depressing be…

It is just regular resistance to change. Loss of productivity is exagerated, it indeed exists in which ever direction but it is only temporary.

Re: Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra

#400
post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, the Zune actually was a better media player than the ipod in almost every way. That wasn't a false statement. The issue was the abysmal marketing and "me too" attitude Microsoft had (and still has).

Technical capability pales in comparison to human desire.

Being easy and pleasant to use and own is also an important capacity.
Post reply on HN