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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

#501

Post by fHr »

phil21 wrote: post #485
internet2000 wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[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 s…

Backup imternet? Everyone has a cellphone to tether from these days no?

Re: New Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra

#502

Post by webXL »

epolanski wrote: post #119
intrasight wrote: post #22

It seems super reasonably priced to me. It's only twice as expensive as my first Mac which only had 128K of memory.

Base models are okay-ish. But +4000$ for an additional 128GB of ram is simply milking the customers, as they know they will have many of them.

Pretty much every company milks their wealthier customers and it frees them up to be more competitive at the lower end. Also, if they charged a more reasonable amount, they would get backordered very quickly.

Re: New Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra

#503

Post by mikestorrent »

baxtr wrote: post #466
abustamam wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes I'll just pop into a meeting from my phone and walk around. That said , I do have a laptop but only because I go to the office every so often . Otherwise, I work exclusively from my home office because that's where my home desktop computer is and I control everything on my work computer from there.

Camera on or off? I love taking meetings while walking but since Covid everyone has their camera on making sedentary meetings mandatory.

There's a lot of value in camera-on, but for some meetings, I love being camera off, nowhere near my computer, somewhere else in the house, watering plants or sweeping the floor. Sometimes it actually has me MORE engaged with the verbal aspect of the meeting, listening better, speaking better, because there's less distraction from Slack and Hacker News...

Re: New Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra

#504

Post by mikestorrent »

loehnsberg wrote: post #404
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.

On some days I wor from home but need to be present and the sun is out. So I take my laptop outside and work from there. I cannot do this with a desktop. Wouldn‘t the workaholic just stay inside and miss out?

Wireless headphones can get you halfway there if they have enough range for ya to walk around the house a bit. Airpods are quite good for this.

Re: New Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra

#505

Post by wmf »

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

AFAIK these "rules" are artificial and there's nothing stopping Apple from having twice as much RAM. They just don't want to.

Re: New Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra

#506

Post by SwellJoe »

icedchai wrote: post #432
SwellJoe wrote: post #226

Earlier 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…

The memory bandwidth on the Spark and Strix Halo is a fraction of the M5 Ultra. "Perform better" is probably a huge understatement.

Yes, if I was going to throw away ten grand on a computer that can run models that are much worse than what I can rent from a variety of providers for a few bucks a month, I'd buy the Apple.

Re: New Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra

#507

Post by seanmcdirmid »

SwellJoe wrote: post #506
icedchai wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The memory bandwidth on the Spark and Strix Halo is a fraction of the M5 Ultra. "Perform better" is probably a huge understatement.

Yes, if I was going to throw away ten grand on a computer that can run models that are much worse than what I can rent from a variety of providers for a few bucks a month, I'd buy the Apple.

Where are you getting DeepSeek for a few bucks a month? I spend around $3/day on it, sometimes $4.

Re: New Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra

#509

Post by speedgoose »

angoragoats wrote: post #420
speedgoose wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Energy efficiency is in another league with the Mac Studio for local workloads. I can run agents using deepseek v4 flash or Qwen 3.8 on my m3 ultra and it will be lukewarm and the fan will eventually start blowing softly.

I’ve run the numbers on this, and an optimized nVidia build can meet or beat Apple platforms in terms of tokens per watt, which is the most important efficiency metric if what you care about is using the least amount of energy to generate a given response. Yes, the Mac might get lukewarm, but it will take 2-3+ times longer to do the same task.

Yes I agree that at full speed with parallel workloads, the tokens per watt are better using Nvidia GPU servers.

Also while the pre fill performance sucks, the Mac isn’t that slow and can use much better model compared to a similarly priced Nvidia workstation so it’s not really taking much longer in practice.

It’s taking longer than in the cloud for sure. At least a local computer uses the local energy grid that is pretty clean and not fossil energy.

Re: New Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra

#510

Post by RealityVoid »

jmalicki wrote: post #257
flaunf221 wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me the idea of working on (non-docked) laptop always seemed like an idea that you would do only if there is no other possible way. Screen is small and is only one. Ergonomics is entirely messed up. Either your screen is too low, or your keyboard is too high. Keyboards are non-ergonomic and have to be made with compromises due to height limits. Touchpad instead of mouse/trackball is compromise for many - and also s…

You can dock your laptop at work, then dock it at home, take it with you to a meeting room at work to browse supplemental materials and/or project your screen n the meeting, and use it for the occasional trip (like using it on the train to work). It's not like you have to be on a plane for the portability to be useful.

I think the point of OP is that while laptops are fine for business trips, tethered usage is superior. My setup is a laptop. Both at home and as work I have a solid desk with an ergonomic chair. On the desk are thunderbolt docks, the docks have hooked the keyboard I like, 2 monitors on mobile stands. And that's it. I have most the advantage of a desktop while using the same machine. One cable to unplug. Super nifty.
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