New Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra • Hacker News Board

Re: New Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra

#301

Post by haldean » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 4:34 PM UTC

meric_ wrote: post #182

OneWhereWhy wrote: post #174

The thing that intrigues me the most is this: "Storage performance is up to twice as fast, with a next-generation SSD architecture built on PCIe Gen 6..." This is the first personal computer I've noticed that has PCIe Gen 6 storage. I've only seen enterprise PCIe Gen 6 SSDs up until now. Gen 5 SSDs in consumer devices already have high temperatures and thermal throttling, so I'm worried about how Apple's implementati…

Im curious, how often is SSD / storage speed performance really useful? I feel like for many people it's akin to gigabyte wifi in that its nice to have, but not really particularly necessary

It's definitely important for editing video and doing VFX work, and lots of the editors/VFX folks I know are using Studios. Raw footage from cine cameras now can be 50-100 MB per second now that we have 12 or 18K cameras, and even the low-quality proxies people work with are still pretty heavy, so in-memory caches aren't really an option and stuff is constantly being read from (and cached to) disk.

Re: New Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra

#302

Post by thefaux » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 4:34 PM UTC

flaunf221 wrote: post #223

PaulRobinson wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been thinking about this a fair bit recently. We make a lot of price/performance compromises for having an attached screen and keyboard on our computer. That was what got me started. Then I remembered the days of having to go to a special corner of the house to use a computer, vs now when I have a computer with me all the time. In my bag, on the sofa, on the train. Hell, I'm writing this on the work MBP while wa…

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…

It sounds like you don't code much in bed or with your feet up.

A laptop is a distinct tool from a desktop and if you try to use it like a desktop, I agree it is a terrible substitute. Personally I find laptops vastly more ergonomic than a desktop, but I never program with my feet on the ground.

Re: New Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra

#303

Post by kridsdale1 » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 4:34 PM UTC

hugmynutus wrote: post #250

OneWhereWhy wrote: post #174

The thing that intrigues me the most is this: "Storage performance is up to twice as fast, with a next-generation SSD architecture built on PCIe Gen 6..." This is the first personal computer I've noticed that has PCIe Gen 6 storage. I've only seen enterprise PCIe Gen 6 SSDs up until now. Gen 5 SSDs in consumer devices already have high temperatures and thermal throttling, so I'm worried about how Apple's implementati…

Apple puts the NAND flash controller on package, so it cooled as part of the SoC/CPU as they share an IHS. Given it is part of the fabric it only has to maintain signal coherence on millimeter to micrometer scales, while enterprise/consumer NAND PCIe have to adhere to standards which force them to signal at 800-1200mV and keep that signal stable for centimeter scale distances. Basically, Apple gets to cheat because t…

They wound up with this design because these chips are descendent from the iPhone 4, where the whole motherboard was 1 inch.

Re: New Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra

#304

Post by freehorse » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 4:38 PM UTC

blints wrote: post #143

ricardobeat wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So 3x more, plus the cost of a GPU (another 10k?). How is that value for money to get slightly better performance?

It can be more than "slightly", particularly if the model you're interested in (or will be interested in in 6 months) doesn't fit on the mac studio. You also need to account for eg storing 10TB of random checkpoints, load time when experimenting, and so on. When you start actually needing throughput these are all capability gaps in practical use, not just x% benchmark differences. If you just want to run Qwen 3.8 27B…

A 3x price difference means you can get 3 256GB mac studios which you can connect through thunderbolt and with RDMA a total of 768GB ram with compute/memory bandwidth scaling basically linearly (with a small overhead cost).

Re: New Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra

#305

Post by kridsdale1 » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 4:38 PM UTC

dakolli wrote: post #290

GodelNumbering wrote: post #150

1.2 TB/s bandwidth of M5 Ultra comes from two dies of M5 Max (each 614 GB/s) connected together using 4.4 TB/s inter-die fabric. For a non-quantized Deepseek V4 flash on an ultra, I would estimate about 1000+ tokens per second prefill and 50+ tokens per second on generation. This is actually quite usable and near parity to cloud. They mention "adds the GPU Neural Accelerators." which, if exploitable for LLM loads, wo…

How much would is the cost for that machine though, I'm pretty sure I could just buy tokens from a provider and never run out of money for 10 years, and get far better quality output because inference is being served by professionals on far better hardware and this machine would be obsolete long before that as well. Hosting local seems like a possibly the dumbest thing you could possibly do from an economics perspect…

Ok sure. But this machine you can haul in an Ice Road Truck to the North Pole and do inference there in an off grid shack. Good luck talking to cloud AI there.

Re: New Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra

#306

Post by dakolli » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 4:50 PM UTC

kridsdale1 wrote: post #305

dakolli wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much would is the cost for that machine though, I'm pretty sure I could just buy tokens from a provider and never run out of money for 10 years, and get far better quality output because inference is being served by professionals on far better hardware and this machine would be obsolete long before that as well. Hosting local seems like a possibly the dumbest thing you could possibly do from an economics perspect…

Ok sure. But this machine you can haul in an Ice Road Truck to the North Pole and do inference there in an off grid shack. Good luck talking to cloud AI there.

Yeah, that's who Apple is making these for fucking Santa and his Elves lmfao

Re: New Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra

#307

Post by brailsafe » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 4:52 PM UTC

roughly wrote: post #227

drnick1 wrote: post #204

Why doesn't Apple make a tower PC with a standard ATX motherboard, power supply, extension cards, etc, like in the old days? That's immensely more upgradable, easier to cool, and I don't believe most people expect their desktops PCs to be tiny.

The reason the mini & studio work as well as they do for the use cases that have made them popular again is because the architecture puts memory, cpu, and gpu/npu on the same die, and puts storage right next to it, which is why you get the storage & memory bandwidth you do. The separability of those components would break that, which is why the Mac Pro didn’t survive past one generation in the Apple Silicon era.

The ram is not on the same "die" it's in the same package

Re: New Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra

#308

Post by jedberg » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 4:58 PM UTC

frollogaston wrote: post #299

jedberg wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My M1 Pro drives 4 screens no problem. The trick is that you can only attach two through one Thunderbolt port, so you have to attach the 3rd one via the other port instead of your dock. (The 4th screen is the laptop's built in screen)

Keyword is pro. Non-pro chips drive fewer screens unless you use DisplayLink. Which I did at some point, it's a hack but ok for lighter usage.

Yes but if your debate is desktop or laptop, you're probably not looking at anything but a pro.

Re: New Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra

#309

Post by jareklupinski » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 4:59 PM UTC

PaulRobinson wrote: post #81

joshstrange wrote: post #7

Due to pricing insanity (not that Apple prices weren’t insane before the ram/ssd shortages) I’m not in the market but I do wonder if my next computer should be a Mac Studio instead of a MBP that lives its life docked. Might be better to just run a Studio and Neo for the very few times I actually need remote capabilities.

I've been thinking about this a fair bit recently. We make a lot of price/performance compromises for having an attached screen and keyboard on our computer. That was what got me started. Then I remembered the days of having to go to a special corner of the house to use a computer, vs now when I have a computer with me all the time. In my bag, on the sofa, on the train. Hell, I'm writing this on the work MBP while wa…

every time i try to 'streamline the computer setup' i get reminded that losing 'the desk' was the worst part / saddest moment

Re: New Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra

#310

Post by frollogaston » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 5:01 PM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #308

frollogaston wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keyword is pro. Non-pro chips drive fewer screens unless you use DisplayLink. Which I did at some point, it's a hack but ok for lighter usage.

Yes but if your debate is desktop or laptop, you're probably not looking at anything but a pro.

Uh idk, I have a desktop and laptop that are both base. The laptop is an M4 Air which is overall faster than M1 Pro, especially single-core where it's even faster than M3 Max.