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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

#381

Post by m463 »

freehorse wrote: post #241
addaon wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I thought it was funny years ago when apple would report the power in watts of some systems like the mac mini.

But for the mac pro, they would say something very obscure.

"100-120V AC or 200-240V AC (wide-range power supply input voltage)" and the maximum current is "12A (low-voltage range) or 6A (high-voltage range)".

They're trying NOT to say it had a 1440 watt power supply.

Re: New Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra

#382

Post by jedberg »

antod wrote: post #379
jedberg wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My M1 Pro drives 4 screens no problem. The trick is that you can only attach two through one Thunderbolt port, so you have to attach the 3rd one via the other port instead of your dock. (The 4th screen is the laptop's built in screen)

I've been away from Macs (2015 MBP and an M1 Pro) for a while now, but they used to have a limitation of one screen per port. Apparently driver related as according to my faulty memory a Linux install didn't have the same issue. Are you using Apple displays or did they fix it?

They must have fixed it because I drive my two main monitors from a dock connected to one port and then my 3rd monitor from the other port. Been set up this way for at least two years now.

Re: New Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra

#383

Post by jfb »

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.

Yeah, I have an MBP for Reasons, but it sits docked 90% of the time. I'd rather spend the engineering budget on better thermals and more ports; I always have it plugged into a fixed monitor and other peripherals.

Re: New Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra

#384

Post by jbellis »

dannyw wrote: post #80
swader999 wrote: post #71

Here's me trying to justify this when I can run frontier models in the cloud for less than the monthly finance charge for this beast.

If you like to experiment with training / finetuning / etc on LLMs, these are actually incredibly ‘cheap’. 1.2TB/s memory bandwidth unlocks a lot with 256GB unified, and agentic AI is pretty good at optimising performance. For comparison, to get 256GB with NVIDIA, you’re looking at a DIY workstation build (need pcie lanes), and like $70k? The spark’s ~250gb/s bandwidth doesn’t really count here.

No, you need more compute for those use cases. That's why everyone trains on GPUs.

Re: New Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra

#385

Post by jfb »

jmalicki wrote: post #253
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.

Why not a non-mac cheaper desktop/workstation and a Mac laptop for use? E.g. what most major tech companies have - a laptop that is for VSCode via ssh/web browsing, and a beefy Linux dev box you ssh into for everything else? It's way cheaper, and what I use at home too - a lot cheaper than a Mac studio for everything, especially with RAM and storage.

For specifically unified memory reasons, Apple machines are much, much better at running local LLMs.

Re: New Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra

#386

Post by mjcohen »

jrrv wrote: post #358
AshleyGrant wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a definite mental aspect for most WFH folks to having a space that is dedicated to work. I'm not unique in saying this, but the way I put it is "If you work from anywhere in your house, then you're always at work." And that, from mental load standpoint, is not healthy for most folks.

Or, if you're like me then "if you work from anywhere in your house, then you're never at work."

[flagged]

Re: New Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra

#388

Post by root_axis »

bewareofscams wrote: post #233
root_axis wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no "future proof" for >1T param models, there is no present or future where you can run a model that size on consumer hardware.

6 Mac Studios for 100k USD. Consider it a rule of thumb now - 100k to run 1T params, scales linearly.

If you have 100k you can just buy a few b200s.

Re: New Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra

#389

Post by comex »

chainwax wrote: post #220
drnick1 wrote: post #204

Why doesn't Apple make a tower PC with a standard ATX motherboard, power supply, extension cards, etc, like in the old days? That's immensely more upgradable, easier to cool, and I don't believe most people expect their desktops PCs to be tiny.

I'm actually coming around to realizing that I _do_ expect a desktop PC to be small. I'm finding myself only considering Mini ITX desktop cases when I think about upgrading my desktop. I only have one video card and don't have storage requirements that necessitate lots of 3.5" drives, a big nvme is all I need. We no longer need CD/DVD/floppy drives, storage has shrunk/moved to the cloud. The only thing that's really…

Personally I'd love to have a smaller PC for gaming, but I've been scared off by Mini-ITX supposedly being harder to work with and tending to have worse cooling and therefore worse noise. I wish PCs were less fiddly to put together.

Re: New Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra

#390

Post by frollogaston »

8xeh wrote: post #375
jmalicki wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except for LLM inference speed, macs suck as a server and are pretty expensive, why wouldn't you get a Linux box?

My Mac mini m1 is a fantastic home server. Years ago I realized running a 100W PC all the time was REALLY expensive, so I switched to an old linux laptop at 30W (about $4/month). That helped, but I moved to the m1 mac specifically for the power efficiency. It does all the things my linux server did, and it does them at 6W (75¢/month). I've found no competitor with similar performance that can run in such a low power…

That too, it's either Mac mini or Rpi if you care about power, and the Rpi is very limited.
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