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

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

#201

Post by rewgs » Sun, Mar 08, 2026, 7:19 PM UTC

827a wrote: post #152

IMO its more nuanced. They're likely in production ramp-up of the M5 Ultra Mac Studio, for release in the next ~3 months; they have pre-purchased bins of memory from the supply-constrained major memory supplies; and they need as much as they can get because they want to push an M5 Ultra config to 768gb to continue the "you can run local models" story that the M5 Max Macbook Pro started telling last week. Going beyond…

My theory is that they're going to release a new Mac Pro that's about half the size of the current one. Enough space for some PCIe slots, but otherwise smaller given the enormous amount of wasted space in that thing since moving from Intel to Apple Silicon. Guessing the rack-mount model, should they continue selling it, will be 3 or 4u instead of 5u.

I know everyone thinks they're going to just kill it, but I don't see it. Apple's move under Tim Cook has been to exhaust supplies (see: filling the Intel Mac Pro chassis with air and not updating the CPU), letting people predict its death (see: 2013 -> 2019 Mac Pro silence), and then redesigning it into something people want while utilizing it as an opportunity to segment specs across their SKUs.

The Studio will remain the high-powered creator machine, whereas the Mac Pro will be retooled into an AI beast.

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

#202

Post by wmf » Sun, Mar 08, 2026, 7:24 PM UTC

brcmthrowaway wrote: post #189

Why can't RAM be done inhouse? It's probably simpler than a CPU.. right?

Maybe etching the deep trench capacitors is really tricky.

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

#203

Post by esskay » Sun, Mar 08, 2026, 7:27 PM UTC

WillAdams wrote: post #95

dwedge wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget the case and fan. I think the RPi 3 was the last one you could comfortably run without a fan and not worry about it frying the SD card

I've had an rPi4 running a copy of a forum and server (for reference) in one of the fancy aluminum cases which passively cools for a couple of years now, no issues.

The big chunky aluminum ones do seem pretty good on the pi 4. I had one in the flirc case for a long time and it never seemed to have issues. Obviously adds to the cost though. Also not sure if the Pi 5 works as well in them given its higher thermals, and the Pi 4 didn't exactly run cool so imagine the 5 might throttle occasionally without active cooling.

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

#204

Post by dwedge » Sun, Mar 08, 2026, 7:28 PM UTC

mort96 wrote: post #71

dwedge wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget the case and fan. I think the RPi 3 was the last one you could comfortably run without a fan and not worry about it frying the SD card

Completely depends on what you're doing. If you're doing a lot of sustained compute, or doing graphics, then yeah you're gonna want some cooling. But it's a useful little machine for all kinds of tasks which don't cause sustained high power consumption.

Two fried on me. One was just running a printserver without a case. It was in summer so ambient temperature was around 32C but still, you telling me you use rpi 5 without even a cooling case?

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

#205

Post by guerrilla » Sun, Mar 08, 2026, 7:28 PM UTC

kube-system wrote: post #118

guerrilla wrote: post #110

I wonder if the war with Iran could actually fix the RAM shortage. If this continues it really could put a damper on datacenter rollout.

How much of the capital investment that’s fueling the current expansion is already allocated?

No idea. Let's assume not all of it.

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

#206

Post by dwedge » Sun, Mar 08, 2026, 7:29 PM UTC

WillAdams wrote: post #95

dwedge wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget the case and fan. I think the RPi 3 was the last one you could comfortably run without a fan and not worry about it frying the SD card

I've had an rPi4 running a copy of a forum and server (for reference) in one of the fancy aluminum cases which passively cools for a couple of years now, no issues.

Yeah I should have been more specific, a fan isn't the only option but you need either a fan or a cooling case. Running them naked is too risky now

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

#207

Post by dwedge » Sun, Mar 08, 2026, 7:30 PM UTC

irusensei wrote: post #57

pera wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah power consumption (and performance per watt) is the main reason I keep buying Raspberry Pi, I haven't find anything similar on that regard, specially for pi zeros

It's also very hard to encounter x86 machines that can be powered from PoE.

Another annoyance is that you need to buy a hat for PoE, it seems like an oversight

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

#208

Post by caseyf7 » Sun, Mar 08, 2026, 7:33 PM UTC

bombcar wrote: post #27

They may be trying to sell through the existing CPU before a launch (soft or not) of the M5-based versions (though I've heard the rumor is there will be no M5 Ultra and we might be looking at an M6 Ultra later in the year).

There will absolutely be an M5 Ultra. Gurman has confirmed it.

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

#209

Post by teaearlgraycold » Sun, Mar 08, 2026, 7:43 PM UTC

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 is the only explanation I can find. Minis aren’t powerful enough for agentic models unless you’re getting a rather expensive version (I could see the MX Pro w/ 64GB working). At which point they don’t have the price appeal of the base model anymore.

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

#210

Post by reenorap » Sun, Mar 08, 2026, 7:44 PM UTC

TMWNN wrote: post #194

reenorap wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been in tech for ~40 years now and I've never seen anything like this. The downstream repercussions on consumer products that have no access to cheap memory is devastating and is an extinction level event for most low-cost providers of cell phones, tvs, etc.

>I've been in tech for ~40 years now and I've never seen anything like this. Then how do you not remember the DRAM shortage of the late 1980s?

At worse back in 1988 it impacted only PCs.

This shortage in 2026 is more consequential across the board and impacts consumer electronics as a whole and the fact it's going to last years means that many low cost manufacturers are going to close up shop because they won't be profitable.