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Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra

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Re: Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra

#231

Post by cogman10 »

dannyw wrote: post #88
recursivedoubts wrote: post #34

Even w/the pricing spike, inflation adjusted we are back to roughly the prices of a new Mac SE/30 for something that can beat a turing test w/o sweating. I yield the floor to no one when it comes to pessimism, but that's incredible.

The DRAM market is cyclical. I don’t think anyone truly knows when, but it will happen. Fab capacity is being bought online; there’s just lead time. Noticeably greater intelligence is being achieved at the same number of parameters (see: Qwen3.8). I think the future will be bright, it might be a matter of time. And for tinkers, a used Epyc + DDR4 server can be great fun and epic value.

I'm expecting it to somewhat collapse. I don't know if it'll go back to pre bubble prices (here's to hoping), but I do expect a pretty sharp decline around 2030... probably not before then.

Basically everyone that makes memory is building new fabs, meanwhile I'm not sure how much longer AI datacenter demand for ram will last. I think the decrease in AI ram demand and the new fabs will likely coincide leading to a collapse in pricing.

That is, of course, assuming the memory manufacturers don't pull their favorite trick and collude.

Re: Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra

#232

Post by bhouston »

gardaani wrote: post #169

Rumors say that Apple will only release M6 base variant and skips M6 Pro, M6 Max and M6 Ultra variants to concentrate all efforts to create a good AI capable M7: "According to reports from Bloomberg, Apple will be skipping its M6 Pro, M6 Max, and M6 Ultra chips to accelerate development of the M7 chip. That means the only chip to be released from the M6 family will be the base M6. The reason for this break with tradi…

The M6 doubled the neural engine from 16 to 32 cores. I would expect that the M7 doubles that again to 64 from 32? That would make sense.

I believe that the CPUs are actually limited by ram bandwidth more than the neural engine right when it comes to LLM processing?

Maybe the M7 introduces something new to get around the current ram bandwidth problems on the non-Ultra chips.

Re: Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra

#233

Post by pdpi »

SSLy wrote: post #139
dannyw wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The DRAM market is cyclical. I don’t think anyone truly knows when, but it will happen. Fab capacity is being bought online; there’s just lead time. Noticeably greater intelligence is being achieved at the same number of parameters (see: Qwen3.8). I think the future will be bright, it might be a matter of time. And for tinkers, a used Epyc + DDR4 server can be great fun and epic value.

Looks like I'll be sporting my 5800X3D + DDR4 + 9070 XT gaming box for a little while. Too bad the CPU's ST is slower than my MB Air m4.

I built a new PC about two years ago, and I probably got it at the last possible opportunity for a while. CPU and motherboard have come down by maybe £100 in between the two of them, but a 7900 xtx (or any other 24GB GPU) for under £1,000 now seems like a bargain, and £180 for 64GB of DDR5 makes me feel like an old man talking about the halcyon days.

Re: Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra

#234

Post by dbspin »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #200
bayindirh wrote: post #117

I know, this is a bit of a meaningless comment, but it's funny in a way. Feels like late 90s again: - Xiaomi: We have matched Apple in CPU performance. - Apple: *Meep Meep...*

It's been really weird reading laptop reviews over the last few months. I've seen a bunch of reviews where they have their usual bar graphs comparing a bunch of laptops, and the laptop that is at the bottom is an Apple. It's the really inexpensive Neo, of course, but even the M5 laptops are consistently beat on performance and battery life by Intel Windows laptops. I assume the M6 will take the crown back and then a…

> even the M5 laptops are consistently beat on performance and battery life by Intel Windows laptops.

When plugged in... This caveat is so enormous it should almost be legislated. If your computer use is at all portable, a computer that scales down to 20 - 40% of GPU power when unplugged is an enormously significant factor. So far as I'm aware (could be wrong about arm devices?) there's no non-apple laptop that operates at 100% speed on the road.

Re: Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra

#236

Post by DrScientist »

SilverSlash wrote: post #25

The 512GB Ultra is amazing, sure. But who is it for exactly? VC funded big spender founders? In that case why would they need local AI? The ultra rich enthusiast? But there can't be too many of those. So who actually buys these?

Remember core customers of Apple studio type products is content creation/video editing, etc.

AI based tools are very useful here - thinks like object removable or cleanup etc, not just AI generation.

For example Apple mentioned performance increases for https://learn.foundry.com/nuke/content/reference_guide/air_n...

Re: Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra

#237

Post by giwook »

Zylokloto wrote: post #215
bayindirh wrote: post #117

I know, this is a bit of a meaningless comment, but it's funny in a way. Feels like late 90s again: - Xiaomi: We have matched Apple in CPU performance. - Apple: *Meep Meep...*

I do not find it funny tbh. I'm very very surprised that Xiaomi matches Apples speed even with the newest release, its not diminishing Xiaomis success.

It's interesting to see how defensive some of these pro-China posters get on HN and elsewhere. I'm genuinely curious why there seems to be an inferiority complex here with respect to America/American companies.

Re: Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra

#238

Post by bayindirh »

troupo wrote: post #207
derwiki wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading Infinite Games, they tell an anecdote about a Microsoft exec on a flight telling an Apple exec that the Zune was a way better portable music player than the iPod. The Apple exec was just “yup, you’re probably right” and then soon after the iPhone dropped

Zune was probably a better player. It was too late, and arrived when MS didn't much care. There are emails unearthed in various lawsuits where you can read Bill Gates screaming at his subordinates: "why the hell can't our partners like Sony and Creative create a similar device? Give them all, give them early access to everything, work with them". In the end MS felt compelled to make their own.

Sony can't be bothered to compete with Apple in that era. They were trying to recover from their DRM dreams, and their devices were already sounding great with in-house software and hardware.

Creative's Muvo^2 already was the poor man's iPod with surprisingly good audio quality as well.

Re: Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra

#239

Post by Lwerewolf »

SSLy wrote: post #139
dannyw wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The DRAM market is cyclical. I don’t think anyone truly knows when, but it will happen. Fab capacity is being bought online; there’s just lead time. Noticeably greater intelligence is being achieved at the same number of parameters (see: Qwen3.8). I think the future will be bright, it might be a matter of time. And for tinkers, a used Epyc + DDR4 server can be great fun and epic value.

Looks like I'll be sporting my 5800X3D + DDR4 + 9070 XT gaming box for a little while. Too bad the CPU's ST is slower than my MB Air m4.

Welcome to the club. If you're _really_ competitive in cs2, I'd swap out to a 9800x3d setup, but it's still a maybe. Very little reason to upgrade right now other than to run LLMs.

Re: Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra

#240

Post by sanderjd »

paxys wrote: post #114
intrasight wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So is downpayment on a house. I would buy the house and just pay for tokens as needed. The house will get more valuable and that wealth would buy a lot of tokens in the future - which will probably get cheaper. EDIT: or buy AAPL. If I had bought Apple stock instead of buying a Mac LC II in 1992, then I would have about $2 million in Apple stock.

Or more simply – $25K (+ tax) put in a savings account will earn about enough interest to pay for a $100/month AI subscription indefinitely. And at the end of it you still have the $25K.

Isn't there something to be said for owning your own hardware though?
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