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macOS 26.2 enables fast AI clusters with RDMA over Thunderbolt

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Re: macOS 26.2 enables fast AI clusters with RDMA over Thunderbolt

#161
post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you might be swapping RDMA with RoCE - RDMA can happen entirely within a single node. For example between an NVME and a GPU.

Within a single node it's just called DMA. RDMA is DMA over a network and RoCE is RDMA over Ethernet.

Sorry, but it certainly isn't--

https://docs.nvidia.com/cuda/gpudirect-rdma/index.html

The "R" in RDMA means there are multiple DMA controllers who can "transparently" share address spaces. You can certainly share address spaces across nodes with RoCE or Infiniband, but thats a layer on top

Re: macOS 26.2 enables fast AI clusters with RDMA over Thunderbolt

#162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People that can reliably predict the future, especially when it comes to rising markets, are almost always billionaires. It is a skill so rare that it can literally make you the richest man on earth. Why should I trust your prediction of future markets that this pricing is the new standard, and will never go down? Line doesn’t always go up, even if it feels like it is right now, and all the tech media darlings are sa…

People that can reliably predict the future You don't need to be a genius or a billionaire to realize that when most of the global supply of a product becomes unavailable the remaining supply gets more expensive. here’s an equivalent speced pc available in the US for $439 with a prime membership. So with prime that's $439+139 for $578 which is only slightly higher than the cost without prime of $549.99.

> You don't need to be a genius or a billionaire to realize that when most of the global supply of a product becomes unavailable the remaining supply gets more expensive.

Yes. Absolutely correct if you are talking about the short term. I was talking about the long term, and said that. If you are so certain would you take this bet: any odds, any amount that within 1 month I can buy 32gb of new retail DDR5 in the US for at least 10% less than the $384 you cited. (think very hard on why I might offer you infinite upside so confidently. It's not because I know where the price of RAM is going in the short term)

> So with prime that's $439+139 for $578 which is only slightly higher than the cost without prime of $549.99.

At this point I can't tell if you are arguing in bad faith, or just unfamiliar with how prime works. Just in case: You have cited the cost of prime for a full year. You can buy just a month of prime for a maximum price of $14.99 (that's how I got $455) if you have already used your free trial, and don't qualify for any discounts. Prime also allows cancellation within 14 days of signing up for a paid option, which is more than enough time to order a computer, and have it delivered, and cancel for a full refund.

So really, if you use a trial or ask for a refund for your prime fees the price is $439. So we have actually gotten the price a full 10% lower than I originally cited.

Edit: to eliminate any arguments about Prime in the price of the PC, here's an indentically speced mini PC for the same price from Newegg https://www.newegg.com/p/2SW-00BM-00002

Re: macOS 26.2 enables fast AI clusters with RDMA over Thunderbolt

#163
post #13
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? I thought it's always been that HDR was notorious on Windows, hopeless on Linux, and only really worked in a plug-and-play manner on Mac, unless your display has an incorrect profile or something/ https://www.youtube.com/shorts/sx9TUNv80RE

MacOS does wash out SDR content in HDR mode specifically on non-Apple monitors. An HDR video playing in windowed mode will look fine but all the UI around it has black and white levels very close to grey. Edit: to be clear, macOS itself (Cocoa elements) is all SDR content and thus washed out.

Oh, that explains why it looked so odd when I enabled HDR on my Studio.

Re: macOS 26.2 enables fast AI clusters with RDMA over Thunderbolt

#164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like it could be a thing. Also, I’m curious and in case anyone that knows reads this comment: Apple say they can’t get the performance they want out of discreet GPUs. Fair enough. But yet nVidia becomes the most valuable company in the world selling GPUs. So… Now I get that Apples use case is essentially sealed consumer devices built with power consumption and performance tradeoffs in mind. But could Apple use…

There’s been rumors of Apple working on M-chips that have the GPU and CPU as discrete chiplets. The original rumor said this would happen with the M5 Pro, so it’s potentially on the roadmap. Theoretically they could farm out the GPU to another company but it seems like they’re set on owning all of the hardware designs.

Apple always strives for complete vertical integration.

SJ loved to quote Alan Kay:

"People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware."

Qualcomm are the latest on the chopping block, history repeating itself.

If I were a betting man I'd say Apple's never going back.

Re: macOS 26.2 enables fast AI clusters with RDMA over Thunderbolt

#165
post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Home PCs are as cheap as they’ve ever been. just the 5090 GPU costs +$3k, what are you even talking about

A home PC has to have a SOTA gpu?

Probably upset that the high-end video game "hobby" costs more than it used to. Used to be $1-2K for the very best gaming GPU of the time.

Re: macOS 26.2 enables fast AI clusters with RDMA over Thunderbolt

#167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm neither and have 2. 24/7 async inference against github issues. Free. (once you buy the macs that is)

I wonder what the actual lifetime amortized cost will be.

Every time I'm tempted to get one of these beefy mac studios, I just calculate how much inference I can buy for that amount and it's never a good deal.

Re: macOS 26.2 enables fast AI clusters with RDMA over Thunderbolt

#168
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple tends to book its fab time / supplier capacity years in advance

I hope so, I want to replace my M1 Pro with MacBook Pro with M5 Pro when they release it next year.

I mostly want the M5 Pro because my choice of an M4 Air this year with 24 GB of RAM is turning out to be less than I want with the things I'm doing these days.

Re: macOS 26.2 enables fast AI clusters with RDMA over Thunderbolt

#169
post #23

This implies you'd run more than one Mac Studio in a cluster, and I have a few concerns regarding Mac clustering (as someone who's managed a number of tiny clusters, with various hardware): 1. The power button is in an awkward location, meaning rackmounting them (either 10" or 19" rack) is a bit cumbersome (at best) 2. Thunderbolt is great for peripherals, but as a semi-permanent interconnect, I have worries over the…

I have no experience with this, but for what it's worth, looks like there's a rack mounting enclosure available which mechanically extends the power switch: https://www.sonnetstore.com/products/rackmac-studio

I have something similar from MyElectronics, and it works, but it's a bit expensive, and still imprecise. At least the power button isn't in the back corner underneath!

Re: macOS 26.2 enables fast AI clusters with RDMA over Thunderbolt

#170
post #3

I follow the MLX team on Twitter and they sometimes post about using MLX on two or more joined together Macs to run models that need more than 512GB of RAM. A couple of examples: Kimi K2 Thinking (1 trillion parameters): https://x.com/awnihannun/status/1986601104130646266 DeepSeek R1 (671B): https://x.com/awnihannun/status/1881915166922863045 - that one came with setup instructions in a Gist: https://gist.github.com/…

Tensor Parallel test with RDMA last week https://x.com/anemll/status/1996349871260107102

Note fast sync workaround

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