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Apple M3 Ultra

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Re: Apple M3 Ultra

#501

Post by ykl »

tempest_ wrote: post #436
cxie wrote: post #222

512GB of unified memory is truly breaking new ground. I was wondering when Apple would overcome memory constraints, and now we're seeing a half-terabyte level of unified memory. This is incredibly practical for running large AI models locally ("600 billion parameters"), and Apple's approach of integrating this much efficient memory on a single chip is fascinating compared to NVIDIA's solutions. I'm curious about how…

Nvidia has had the Grace Hoppers for a while now. Is this not like that?

This is cheap compared to GB200, which has a street price of >$70k for just the chip alone if you can even get one. Also GB200 technically has only 192GB per GPU and access to more than that happens over NVLink/RDMA, whereas here it’s just one big flat pool of unified memory without any tiered access topology.

Re: Apple M3 Ultra

#502

Post by hedora »

p_ing wrote: post #384
naikrovek wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

surprisingly, Windows containers on Windows are not run in a VM. Well, not necessarily; they can be. It is definitely odd that Macs have no native container support, though, especially when you learn that Windows does.

Well, Windows (in a form) is the hypervisor for the Azure infrastructure. Azure Web Sites when run as Windows/IIS are Windows containers. Makes sense. Honestly I don't know what XNU/Darwin is good for. It doesn't do anything especially well compared to *BSD, Linux, and NT.

Its async i/o APIs are best in class (i.e., compatible with BSD, and not Linux’s epoll tire fire).

Not disagreeing though.

Re: Apple M3 Ultra

#503

Post by aurareturn »

refulgentis wrote: post #487
aurareturn wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

High TDP? You mean server-grade CPUs? Apple doesn't make those.

> You mean server-grade CPUs? Apple doesn't make those. Right. It is coming up because we're in a thread about using them as server CPUs. (c.f. "colo", "2U" in OP and OP's child), and the person you're replying to is making the same point you are For years now, people will comment "these are the best chips, I'd replace all chips with them." Then someone points out perf/watt is not perf. Then someone else points out s…

  It's a great chip. It's not the fastest,
It has the world's fastest single thread.

Re: Apple M3 Ultra

#504

Post by stefan_ »

johntitorjr wrote: post #366
stefan_ wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just buy any gaming card? Even something like the Jetson AGX Orin boasts 275 TOPS (but they add in all kind of different subsystems to reach that number).

The Jetson is interesting! Can you elaborate on how the TOPS value is inflated? What GPU would be the equivalent of the Jetson AGX Orin?

The problem with the TOPS is that they add in ~100 TOPS from the "Deep Learning Accelerator" coprocessors, but they have a lot of awkward limitations on what they can do (and software support is terrible). The GPU is an Ampere generation, but there is no strict consumer GPU equivalent.

Re: Apple M3 Ultra

#505

Post by [deleted] »

diggan wrote: post #490
bastardoperator wrote: post #479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's fast enough for me to cancel monthly AI services on a mac mini m4 max.

Could you maybe share a lightweight benchmark where you share the exact model (+ quantization if you're using that) + runtime + used settings and how much tokens/second you're getting? Or just like a log of the entire run with the stats, if you're using something like llama.cpp, LMDesktop or ollama? Also, would be neat if you could say what AI services you were subscribed to, there is a huge difference between paid C…

[deleted]

Re: Apple M3 Ultra

#506

Post by hedora »

mschuster91 wrote: post #209
kstrauser wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. I run Docker and Podman on my Macs. 2. If you mean MDM, there are several good options. Screen sharing and SSH are build in. 3. In what sense? 4. `uv python install whatever` is infinitely better than upgrading on the OS vendor’s schedule. 5. What does that affect?

> 1. I run Docker and Podman on my Macs. That's using a Linux VM. The idea people are asking about is native process isolation. Yes you'd have to rebuild Docker containers based on some sort of (small) macOS base layer and Homebrew/Macports, but hey. Being able to even run nodejs or php with its thousands of files natively would be a gamechanger in performance.

Also, it were possible to containerize macos, or even do an unintended vm installation, then it’d be possible for apple to automatically regression test their stuff.

Re: Apple M3 Ultra

#507

Post by xp84 »

dylan604 wrote: post #144
bigfishrunning wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except the linux users won't be buying Apple software, from the app store or elsewhere. They won't subscribe to iCloud.

I have Mac hardware and and have spent $0 through the Mac App Store. I do not use iCloud on it either. I do on iDevices though. I must be an edge case though.

All of us on HN are basically edge cases. The main target market of Macs is super dependent on Apple service subscriptions.

Maybe that's why they ship with insultingly-small SSDs by default, so that as people's photo libraries, Desktop and Documents folders fill up, Apple can "fix your problem" for you by selling you the iCloud/Apple One plan to offload most of the stuff to only live in iCloud.

Either they spend the $400 up front to get 2 notches up on the SSD upgrade, to match what a reasonable device would come with, or they spend that $400 $10 a month for the 40 month likely lifetime of the computer. Apple wins either way.

Re: Apple M3 Ultra

#508

Post by jjtheblunt »

TheRealPomax wrote: post #469
cxie wrote: post #222

512GB of unified memory is truly breaking new ground. I was wondering when Apple would overcome memory constraints, and now we're seeing a half-terabyte level of unified memory. This is incredibly practical for running large AI models locally ("600 billion parameters"), and Apple's approach of integrating this much efficient memory on a single chip is fascinating compared to NVIDIA's solutions. I'm curious about how…

I think the other big thing is that the base model finally starts at a normal amount of memory for a production machine. You can't get less than 96GB. Although an extra $4000 for the 512GB model seems Tim Apple levels of ridiculous. There is absolutely no way that the different costs anywhere near that much at the fab. And the storage solution still makes no sense of course, a machine like this should start at 4TB fo…

> There is absolutely no way that the different costs anywhere near that much at the fab.

price premium probably, but chip lithography errors (thus, yields) at the huge memory density might be partially driving up the cost for huge memory.

Re: Apple M3 Ultra

#509

Post by layer8 »

lauritz wrote: post #46

They update the Studio to M3 Ultra now, so M4 Ultra can presumably go directly into the Mac Pro at WWDC? Interesting timing. Maybe they'll change the form factor of the Mac Pro, too? Additionally, I would assume this is a very low-volume product, so it being on N3B isn't a dealbreaker. At the same time, these chips must be very expensive to make, so tying them with luxury-priced RAM makes some kind of sense.

Apple says that not every generation will get an “Ultra” variant: https://arstechnica.com/apple/2025/03/apple-announces-m3-ult...

Re: Apple M3 Ultra

#510

Post by kube-system »

Alupis wrote: post #318
bigyabai wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the Ultra chip, the same one that goes into the rackmount Mac Pro. I don't think there's much confusion as to who this is for. > there’s no sign that they’re interested in updating that for the AI age. https://security.apple.com/blog/private-cloud-compute/

Outside of extremely niche use cases, who is racking apple products in 2025?

Every provider who offers MacOS in the cloud.
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