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Apple's 512GB Mac Studio vanishes, a quiet acknowledgment of the RAM shortage

arstechnica.com

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Re: Apple's 512GB Mac Studio vanishes, a quiet acknowledgment of the RAM shortage

#121

Post by zozbot234 »

groundzeros2015 wrote: post #104
jmull wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly, the "ultra" Mac Studio released a year ago was based on the older M3, not M4. Apparently, the work to "ultra-fy" a CPU is significant (which makes sense) so there can be a lag. Not that they have to follow pattern, but the a Mac Studio ultra released later this year might be based on M4. Or one based on M5 might be released a year or more from now.

My understanding is “ultra-ify” means put two together. I think it’s about having inventory https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2022/03/apple-unveils-m1-ultr...

It used to mean that, but the new M5 Pro and M5 Max have separate CPU and GPU chiplets with an interposer, similar to how the previous generation Ultras were based on connecting two Max full dies. So it's unclear whether there will be any Ultra for the M5.

Re: Apple's 512GB Mac Studio vanishes, a quiet acknowledgment of the RAM shortage

#122

Post by copperx »

kmfrk wrote: post #108
marcuskaz wrote: post #89

Inventory is tight too, if you look at delivery/shipping times for Mac Studio and Mac Mini, I'm seeing April/May

A lot of people also got into buying Macs for OpenClaw, so demand is probably up as well.

What's the deal with the Mac Mini and Openclaw? a vps is a better alternative.

is it because iMessage?

Re: Apple's 512GB Mac Studio vanishes, a quiet acknowledgment of the RAM shortage

#123

Post by zozbot234 »

phamilton wrote: post #94
chiph wrote: post #40

I think it's unlikely that Apple is paying the spot price for memory. They almost certainly negotiate delivery/price contracts in advance. Maybe the contract for the chips used in the 512GB model will expire soon?

15 years ago I was an intern at Micron and learned they passed on a contract with Apple because Apple insisted on discounts and there wasn't a compelling reason to reduce profit at Micron. So yeah, Apple probably does pay less. But the market has enough demand that suppliers do say no.

This is actually relevant, because DRAM costs just as much now per Gb as it did 15 years ago (that's controlling for inflation; it's as much as it cost 20 years ago on a pure price basis).

Re: Apple's 512GB Mac Studio vanishes, a quiet acknowledgment of the RAM shortage

#124

Post by ganoushoreilly »

storus wrote: post #79
rattray wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious, what do you use it for?

Huge local thinking LLMs to solve math and for general assistant-style tasks. Models like Kimi-2.5-Q3, DeepSeek-XX-Q4/Q5, Qwen-3.5-Q8, MiniMax-m2.5-Q8 etc. that bring me to Claude4/GPT5 territory without any cloud. For coding I have another machine with 3x RTX Pro 6000 (mostly Qwen subvariants) and for image/video/audio generation I have 2x DGX Sparks from ASUS.

We must be twins, i've got the same three working in a cluster.

I was really excited to see where the GB300 Desktops end up, with 768gb ram but now that data is leaking / popping up (dell appears to only be 496gb), we may be in the 60-100k range and that's well out of my comfort zone.

If Apple came out with a 768gb Studio at 15k i'd bite in a heart beat.

https://www.dell.com/en-us/lp/dell-pro-max-nvidia-ai-dev

Re: Apple's 512GB Mac Studio vanishes, a quiet acknowledgment of the RAM shortage

#125

Post by kube-system »

groundzeros2015 wrote: post #104
jmull wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly, the "ultra" Mac Studio released a year ago was based on the older M3, not M4. Apparently, the work to "ultra-fy" a CPU is significant (which makes sense) so there can be a lag. Not that they have to follow pattern, but the a Mac Studio ultra released later this year might be based on M4. Or one based on M5 might be released a year or more from now.

My understanding is “ultra-ify” means put two together. I think it’s about having inventory https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2022/03/apple-unveils-m1-ultr...

The existing ultras are two max dies connected together with TSMC’s CoWoS-S interposer. But as I understand the interposer can have yield issues, so yes — you put two together, but it’s not quite as easy as snapping together legos.

Re: Apple's 512GB Mac Studio vanishes, a quiet acknowledgment of the RAM shortage

#126

Post by storus »

rz2k wrote: post #96
storus wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

M5 Max has still only 128GB RAM at most; one would expect 192GB if there was any indication M5 Ultra would have 768GB RAM?

The maximum memory configuration for the M3 Max MBP was also128GB.

That's my whole point. M3 Max 128GB -> M3 Ultra 512GB. M5 Max 128GB -> M5 Ultra 512GB. But if M5 Max 192GB -> M5 Ultra 768GB, i.e. Ultra having 4x the memory of Max.

Re: Apple's 512GB Mac Studio vanishes, a quiet acknowledgment of the RAM shortage

#127

Post by andai »

kmfrk wrote: post #108
marcuskaz wrote: post #89

Inventory is tight too, if you look at delivery/shipping times for Mac Studio and Mac Mini, I'm seeing April/May

A lot of people also got into buying Macs for OpenClaw, so demand is probably up as well.

Yeah on the discord you see a lot of people asking about how much RAM they need to run local models. There seems to be a lot of demand for it.

Re: Apple's 512GB Mac Studio vanishes, a quiet acknowledgment of the RAM shortage

#128

Post by andai »

copperx wrote: post #122
kmfrk wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people also got into buying Macs for OpenClaw, so demand is probably up as well.

What's the deal with the Mac Mini and Openclaw? a vps is a better alternative. is it because iMessage?

You do actually need to run it on a Mac, if (and only if!) you require integration with Mac-only software. But the main factor is probably just "all the cool kids are doing it" ;)

Re: Apple's 512GB Mac Studio vanishes, a quiet acknowledgment of the RAM shortage

#129

Post by kube-system »

copperx wrote: post #122
kmfrk wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people also got into buying Macs for OpenClaw, so demand is probably up as well.

What's the deal with the Mac Mini and Openclaw? a vps is a better alternative. is it because iMessage?

iMessage… and safari. Browsing the web from a headless vps has hurdles.

Re: Apple's 512GB Mac Studio vanishes, a quiet acknowledgment of the RAM shortage

#130

Post by kube-system »

chiph wrote: post #40

I think it's unlikely that Apple is paying the spot price for memory. They almost certainly negotiate delivery/price contracts in advance. Maybe the contract for the chips used in the 512GB model will expire soon?

Yes but the clock has been ticking, new products are being released, and at some point they will be renegotiating the next contract
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