Ugh, more "AI" hype. How useful are the cited hardware features for NON-"AI" processing?
Yes, instead of answering... just downvote.
MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max
941–950 of 1001 posts
Re: MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max
#942Re: MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max
#943Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's Intel - you could run any Linux. Unfortunately, I don't know that Linux handles the bespoke 5k graphics. Moreover, our corp Linux distribution is only certified for particular devices. Even if the screen worked, you wouldn't be allowed on the network, which is the whole problem with Intel support being dropped in the first place.
Serious question: why are they doing this if they've been marketing BeyondCorp for years now? Why is corporate network special then?
Beyondcorp protects communication between trusted devices. The work to maintain a trusted hardware device of a particular model is high; CVEs occur constantly and sometimes you have to rely on the vendor to provide microcode (even if you get the source to review, they may be the only ones who can sign it, for example) or drivers.
The network connection isn't the main problem, it's every access to a protected system that would no longer trust the device.
Re: MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max
#944Earlier quoted context omitted.
You’ll see a lot of MacBooks in Beijing’s zhongguangcun where all the tech companies are, but they also have a lot of students there as well, so who knows. You need to go out to the suburbs where Lenovo has offices to stop seeing them. I know Apple is common in Western Europe having lived there for two years (but that was 20 years ago, I lived in China for 9 years after that). It wouldn’t surprise me if the deepseek…
I would also expect that the Deepseek devs are using MacBook. If not they may be using Linux - Windows is possible of course but not likely imho. I have no knowledge about that area though so would be interesting to here any primary sources or anecdotes.
Deepseek is in Hangzhou, so I guess they are. GDP/capita in Zhejiang is pretty high, even more so for HZ. If you ever visit, it feels like a pretty nice place (especially if you can get a villa around xihu). I also visited ZJU once, and it was pretty Macbooky, but I don't have as much experience there as Beijing's Zhongguancun.
Re: MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max
#945Earlier quoted context omitted.
Shame the keycaps wear so poorly. Just a cosmetic issue, but on a £3k machine that’s otherwise amazing, it’s annoying to have keycaps that look rather dirty/greasy as they wear and develop shiny patches. (Can at least replace them via the self-service repair store. Fiddly job but worth it)
I use my machine daily for 5 years and the keyboard looks new, what are you doing to it? ;-)
Re: MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max
#946Earlier quoted context omitted.
Anyone who cares about value isn’t getting a non-base model Mac. They are buying the silver shiny thing or their company is paying. For example, grab yourself an Omen Transcend 14, spec it to 64GB RAM and the RTX 5070. You’re under $2000 and getting better graphics performance for anything that isn’t AI, and you’ve got an upgradable 1TB SSD and removable WiFi card. You’re also getting an OLED screen which most people…
> Anyone who cares about value isn’t getting a non-base model Mac. They are buying the silver shiny thing or their company is paying. Or they value things differently than you do. Like screen brightness. Or external IO. Or more than 64GB of memory. Or not being stuck with Windows. Or an SSD larger than 2TB. > removable WiFi card I could stick my hand into a wood chipper and still use the stump to count the number of…
It's hilarious to me that you are acting like these features you are bringing up are exclusive to Mac!
SSD larger than 2GB? That's not a differentiating feature of a Mac. As a completely random example, an HP Omen Transcend 14 has DUAL M.2 SSD slots and that's not even a high end PC laptop. Macs are the only systems on the market where you can't upgrade the storage after purchase and you're doing so at insane markups.
More than 64GB of memory, yeah, that's also available on other PCs. Numerous PCs. I found multiple models from multiple manufacturers that support the same 128GB maximum. My Framework 13 supports 96GB and it's socketed DDR5 so I can just buy it at a store after purchase, or you can look at the new Lenovo T series Gen 7 (10/10 iFixit Repair Score) which has LPCAMM2 memory, allowing for BOTH repairability/upgradability AND high memory speed.
External IO, again, Apple isn't the gatekeeper of Thunderbolt 5. Where is the MacBook Pro with Oculink for the best external GPU performance? My Framework 13 has four fully customizable ports, I can literally put whatever ports I want on the machine and switch them out. Apple can't be bothered to put a USB-A port on a device despite the fact that it's still widely used and it would be convenient to just have one on there.
Apple doesn't make their own display panels. You can get a PC laptop with a wide variety of panels including the same mini-LED technology. Where is the MacBook Pro with a tandem OLED panel? You don't really get a choice with a Mac, you are stuck with the two different panels that they sell.
On Mac you're stuck with macOS. On a PC laptop you have more choices, Windows or a wide variety of Linux and BSD derivatives. Linux on Mac hardware is not fully functional and compatible with the hardware. Being stuck with Mac means you are unable to run a far wider array of software than being stuck with Windows or Linux. Imagine it this way: you just bought a top of the line MacBook Pro with the M5 Max chip, you've got a beast of a machine! You just spent your day crushing high intensity productivity tasks. Now you'd like to leverage the insane speed of your MacBook Pro playing some AAA video games. Oops! The macoS game library is miniscule, and CrossOver ($ annual license fee) is not ideal compared to Steam on Windows or Steam/Proton on Linux. I guess I can just play Cyberpunk 2077 or Rise of the Tomb Raider for the 10th time on my Mac!
Nobody mentions a removable WiFi card until their WiFi/Bluetooth stops working and they're stuck with an astronomical repair bill and now because they're Apple customers they are buying an entirely new system and "recycling" their old laptop. On a system like a Framework or a Lenovo T series 7th gen, components like USB-C ports are removable in case they are physically damaged, and you can buy parts directly from the manufacturer. Apple's strategy is to upsell you on an extended warranty/insurance plan to try and avoid astronomical repair bills.
Re: MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max
#947I checked the fine print on the product website: by “up to 4x faster LLM prompt processing,” they’re specifically referring to time to first token. So it’s not about token generation rate (tokens per second).
It’s a big deal! Prompt processing was previously the Mac’s weak point. Sure, output generation matters for file recital in programming, but in general conversation I’d rather have it output a short answer anyway (after extensive processing by a smart model).
General conversation is already free with all the major providers (Claude, ChatGPT, etc.). That's not where the major gains in productivity lie.
Re: MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max
#948Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think it's even a broad strategy from PM or higher ups. I actually think it's engineers inside the company who want to play with the coolest hardware and the build features for the newest stuff. Features can be made to work with older hardware but that requires more time and optimization which they never get, so someone takes a call that x and y features only work on newer gen hardware.
In my new position (on a different product) I don't have enough fingers to count how many times the previous guy bullshitted the PO/PM with "that's not possible" of having some features / workflows enabled. Just because he didn't bother thinking through it or just didn't want to do it. Most of the stuff is a bit boring but just a few days of work and test. So yeah I entirely agree with you.
>I don't have enough fingers to count how many times the previous guy bullshitted the PO/PM with "that's not possible" of having some features / workflows enabled. Just because he didn't bother thinking through it or just didn't want to do it.
Or just because if somebody who knows the code inside out doesn't shoot down most new stupid feature requests, the product would end up a slow overcomplicated mess of random features and technical debt.
Re: MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max
#949Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I think this could go equally for Windows as well Absolutely. Why are all the buttons centred on the task bar for Windows 11? Violation of so many design rules. Literally the worst part of MacOS they took there which contradicted other reasons for the design. Throwing the mouse to the corner for a start button no longer works. I could go on. > I'm fairly new to Linux so I can't really form an opinion there. Gnome i…
> GNOME is great For a different opinion, please see https://woltman.com/gnome-bad/ GNOME is extremely opinionated.
> Some folks lament that its not as UI feature rich as KDE, but for me thats a bonus.
Yep, I know it is opinionated and I really like a lot of their decisions. Most of what he says in that is "it doesn't clone Windows therefore it breaks my muscle memory". I don't care about your opinions and it isn't the same as mine.
But the best part is that it's optional.
Re: MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max
#950Earlier quoted context omitted.
The next macOS will be touch screen centric with elements getting bigger when you're close to touching them, rumors say. That being said, I run Tahoe and it works perfectly fine to me, I am not sure what issues people have with it. Sure, some corner radii aren't exactly the same but I honestly couldn't give less of a shit as long as it runs the programs I need.
Safari routinely using 20+ Gb of memory with a handful of tabs open. Safari tabs refusing to close. Unresponsive System Settings window. Random application freezes and crashes, Apple Music not playing music. This is on a 32Gb M1 Max. My M1 Air on Sequoia doesn't experience any of these issues, even if it has half the unified memory.
Just do a fresh OS install erasing full disk first. Then be careful what apps you add. Done.