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New Mac mini, featuring M6 and M5 Pro

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Re: New Mac mini, featuring M6 and M5 Pro

#271

Post by tqi »

rainsford wrote: post #251
jdoe1337halo wrote: post #11

So happy with my base M4 purchase for $499 when it released. I even snagged a 1TB replacement drive for $199 a year ago. Feels like I got the last train out.

I know it's at least a little irrational, but I am indescribably angry with the pricing trajectory of personal computing. I'm not all that young and for pretty much all my life the computers you as a random person could buy have consistently become massively more performant and massively cheaper over time. Even when the exponential performance increases started to taper off, every few years you could buy or build a n…

I feel like we are basically reliving the COVID era supply chain crunch, that it's basically inevitable that in 18-36 months more capacity will come online and prices will crash back to earth.

Whether OEMs like Apple pass these savings along to consumers is tbd though.

Re: New Mac mini, featuring M6 and M5 Pro

#272

Post by pcarolan »

My father was a plumber in the 80s and bought our family an Amiga 1000 for $1,200. Today thats about $3800 in inflation adjusted money. I just bought my son a top of the line pc for $2,000. I get that it used to be cheaper, but value is still relatively good for these machines.

Re: New Mac mini, featuring M6 and M5 Pro

#273

Post by BirAdam »

a2ff6eeb0 wrote: post #132
brightball wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

gestures at supply and demand

Yeah. It's not working to lower prices.

Right now, demand exceeds supply. As new fabs come online, supply will rise. Eventually, either through greater efficiency of the models and inference systems or through the collapse of AI companies, the demand will drop.

Re: New Mac mini, featuring M6 and M5 Pro

#274

Post by NamlchakKhandro »

rcarmo wrote: post #43
PinguTS wrote: post #8

What I am missing in all of those benchmarks, how does the M6 compares to the M5 Pro. I don't care how the M6 compares to the M1, even when the M6 2.3x compared to M1 in Excel spreadsheet. That is no measurement even in accounting. The dead time is not the Excel. I am to only one?

The big difference you're not looking at is the memory bandwidth. The M5 Pro has nearly twice the one of the M6: 170GB/s memory bandwidth Configurable up to 32GB unified memory 307GB/s memory bandwidth Configurable up to 64GB unified memory That is also the factor you want to take into account for AI inference, of course.

you're looking at the wrong device.

- Apple M5 Ultra chip

- 30-core CPU with 10 super cores and 20 performance cores

- 64-core GPU

- Neural Accelerators

- Hardware-accelerated ray tracing

- 32-core Neural Engine

- 1.2TB/s memory bandwidth

one point 2 terrabyte a second memory bandwidth....

512gb coming later this year

but at the cost of a small car

Re: New Mac mini, featuring M6 and M5 Pro

#275

Post by fpoling »

tqi wrote: post #271
rainsford wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know it's at least a little irrational, but I am indescribably angry with the pricing trajectory of personal computing. I'm not all that young and for pretty much all my life the computers you as a random person could buy have consistently become massively more performant and massively cheaper over time. Even when the exponential performance increases started to taper off, every few years you could buy or build a n…

I feel like we are basically reliving the COVID era supply chain crunch, that it's basically inevitable that in 18-36 months more capacity will come online and prices will crash back to earth. Whether OEMs like Apple pass these savings along to consumers is tbd though.

Memory orders for the whole 2027 were already reserved. There is little indication that in 2028 situation will be any better unless something drastic happens like AI crash.

And then the opposite can happen like an unknown drone with 100 kg warhead striking memory production facility.

Re: New Mac mini, featuring M6 and M5 Pro

#276

Post by downrightmike »

pcarolan wrote: post #272

My father was a plumber in the 80s and bought our family an Amiga 1000 for $1,200. Today thats about $3800 in inflation adjusted money. I just bought my son a top of the line pc for $2,000. I get that it used to be cheaper, but value is still relatively good for these machines.

Except we've gotten so much better at making computers since the Amiga, its a travesty that things have gotten so bad for consumers. You know the ones that bail out the bubbles

Re: New Mac mini, featuring M6 and M5 Pro

#277

Post by [deleted] »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #262
api wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t this just inflation? We are in a highly inflationary environment. Everything is going up in nominal terms.

Inflation is a few percent a year roughly. Prices for hardware have skyrocketed. Ram has jumped anywhere from 2-4x in cost. NVMe drives are still going for 2-3x what they cost about 2 years ago. Just go look at one of the amazon price trackers to see how bad it is. TSMC, plus flash and memory manufacturers with their own facilities, have dramatically cut production of almost anything that isn't in demand for AI, plus…

[deleted]

Re: New Mac mini, featuring M6 and M5 Pro

#278

Post by Grombobulous »

massysett wrote: post #155
matt-p wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, for what? Most people use it only for 'internet' and 1G full duplex is generally still enough for that. Happy for 2.5G though :)

My cable internet is 2.5G. So it’s nice to get that full speed when I have a wired connection. To be honest though, my usage does not benefit from the speed. The only benefit is to the reptile part of my brain that says “speed. Must have the fastest possible, and since I’m paying for it, even though maybe I should downgrade it, I want my speed.”

I’d love to take the extra speed if the networking equipment cost wasn’t so crazy.

Then, like you said, on the WAN side you’ve got the monthly internet bill.

1Gbps is the sweet spot, especially since 6Ghz WiFi runs at something like 600Mbps in the real world a reasonable distance away from the WiFi router in an ideal deployment. Saturate your wired, and you get a slight benefit over a 500Mbps plan for your wireless.

Re: New Mac mini, featuring M6 and M5 Pro

#279

Post by Grombobulous »

Gigachad wrote: post #231
matt-p wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, for what? Most people use it only for 'internet' and 1G full duplex is generally still enough for that. Happy for 2.5G though :)

The people using Mac mini/mac studios are very likely media editors who have a NAS on the local network. 1gbit ethernet is slower than wifi at this point and incredibly outdated. 2.5gbit ethernet is quite cheap and common now.

Yeah, the Mac mini is cheap in cost but the buyer of that system is more demanding than someone who buys a MacBook Air or iMac despite the fact that the Mac mini is the cheapest Mac.

The Mac Studio is Apple’s realization that the best Mac Pro was actually the Mac mini with some slight modifications.

Re: New Mac mini, featuring M6 and M5 Pro

#280

Post by hatsix »

api wrote: post #258
rainsford wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know it's at least a little irrational, but I am indescribably angry with the pricing trajectory of personal computing. I'm not all that young and for pretty much all my life the computers you as a random person could buy have consistently become massively more performant and massively cheaper over time. Even when the exponential performance increases started to taper off, every few years you could buy or build a n…

Isn’t this just inflation? We are in a highly inflationary environment. Everything is going up in nominal terms.

no, inflation is the cost of goods rising because money is worth less.

This is capitalism, as demand increases, so does price, regardless of the cogs.

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