Anyone considering the lease option? Anyone done it with Apple before? Could it be tax advantaged?
New Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra
481–490 of 570 posts
Re: New Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra
#482Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Computers are never "future proof". Upgradeable components however could go a loooong stretch towards that goal. It can't be that hard to follow a common form factor for at least the housing across two or three generations to allow a reuse of everything but the main PCB.
Think it would have same memory bandwidth if the RAM was upgradeable? Would be nice if someone knowledgeable about electrical engineering and manufacturing processes could lay out some valid reasons for manufacturers to integrate RAM onto the motherboard. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49041256#49082206
Each connector will introduce "insertion loss" to the chain, eating into your signal integrity budget.
The SO DIMM Ram slot, which is designed, idk, 30 years ago? is not really capable of handling the frequency we are targeting (close to 10GT/s)
Re: New Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra
#483Due 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.
Yes, and..
Just Tailscale into the Studio from iPad Pro 13" with magic keyboard and Kit Knox's rootshell:
https://github.com/kitknox/rootshell
Note that the iPad Pro can also drive a 4K second screen if you like, and most anything else a Macbook with a single port could drive.
Why not Macbook Air? Because the iPad Pro is also a tablet, touch screen, and 5G...
Re: New Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra
#484Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's in the same ballpark as two 128GB AI machines like the Asus GX10 or DGX Spark or Strix Halo. And, it seems very likely to perform better than either of those for inference. And, 256GB brings some pretty good models into play. But, that doesn't make it a good deal. It just means the Apple tax doesn't apply when stacked up against AI machines and with memory prices being so out of whack. I'm still planning to wa…
Is there anything in the works or planned that suggests the RAMpocalypse will end anytime soon? e.g. new fabs being built, permitted, planned, etc...
There are some news about AI/LLM progress rate flattening out: People uses the cheaper model more than better model. Some AI startup in Chinese lose half of value.
Re: New Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra
#485Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or you're never at work, like they said.
[flagged]
For most people, I'd reckon they are never at work.
There is a reason we know that remote learning is horrible for most people compared to in-classroom. We proved this decisively during COVID.
There is zero reason to believe that most folks magically change overnight from being incapable of remote learning to being highly capable remote workers. It's just not believable.
I hired remote workers in the 90's. It was a small fraction of the total candidate base that could successfully self-motivate and have the discipline to become high performers in such an environment over the long haul. Most of my interviewing and candidate vetting had to do with the remote aspect vs. technical skillset. Luckily around that time is when open source became a huge thing, so those projects presented a pool of pre-vetted candidates to hire out of. The rest of the candidate pool was a total crapshoot.
Remote working has become easier and the tooling and technology much better. But from where I'm standing - many folks do not take it seriously. Simple stuff like having backup Internet is a filtering question for me even today.
Re: New Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra
#486Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know that "consumer hardware" is a useful distinction anymore, it's just "what's your budget and what's your speed requirement".
Consumer hardware means: - 120v input plug - not rack-mounted - has a video out port
To me, "consumer item" is when i don't have to contact sale people for price.
Re: New Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra
#487Due 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.
Yes, and.. Just Tailscale into the Studio from iPad Pro 13" with magic keyboard and Kit Knox's rootshell: https://github.com/kitknox/rootshell Note that the iPad Pro can also drive a 4K second screen if you like, and most anything else a Macbook with a single port could drive. Why not Macbook Air? Because the iPad Pro is also a tablet, touch screen, and 5G...
this is exactly my setup! the ipad pro 11 m5 cellular is such an amazing device especially with the 5G. only downside is obv the iPadOS, it's still very limiting and shortcuts and power tools (like easily prefilling passwords) are non-existent. for passwords, you still have to manually click the pre-fill and/or enable full keyboard to be able to tab into it but still annoying.
Re: New Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra
#488Sorry 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?
With the newest Qwen 3.8 27B model you can get opus on just about any new Mac.
It can fit into 16GB macbook ?
Re: New Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra
#489Earlier 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.
Oh, that's for the 256GB option. Based on their math, I'd hazard the 512GB option being $23,799+. ($4K to go from 96 to 256)