7 ms·
10 grand for 256GB memory. Likely double that for 512GB, but won't be available or finalized until October. Thunderbolt 5 is highest bandwidth external IO ava
by blints 23d ago
10 grand for 256GB memory. Likely double that for 512GB, but won't be available or finalized until October. Thunderbolt 5 is highest bandwidth external IO available at 120Gb/s. 1.2TB/s claimed max internal memory bandwidth.
Not exactly "future proof" for >1T parameter models but good for targeting specific lower-parameter models, or if you can rely on pipeline parallelism and run a cluster.
- BugsJustFindMe 23d ago> Not exactly "future proof" Computers are never "future proof".
- mschuster91 23d ago> Computers are never "future proof". Upgradeable components however could go a loooong stretch towards that goal. It can't be that hard to follow a common form factor for at least the housing across two or three generations to allow a reuse of everything but the main PCB.
- _kush 23d agoIf it was upgradable, then yes, spending more on top of it every year would make it future proof, but that's not the point. It's that spending 10 grand doesn't get you a future proof computer today.
- fearmerchant 23d agoThe way the Apple M-series does ram that might be difficult to pull off.
- mschuster91 23d ago> The way the Apple M-series does ram that might be difficult to pull off. Well it might be an idea to keep the layout of the mainboard and connectors the same. That way, instead of having to upgrade the whole machine, all it would need is a new mainboard. Framework for example managed to pull that off, and in mobile at that, where constraints are much worse than for a desktop computer.
- isgb 23d ago> Framework for example managed to pull that off, and in mobile at that, where constraints are much worse than for a desktop computer. It's not the same thing though. On the M-series, CPU and GPU share a unified memory architecture and ram is much more tightly coupled to get it to go faster. A closer example would be the Framework desktop, actually, where memory is also soldered in for the same reason.
- roughly 23d agoThat actually would be interesting - yes, the computer itself is basically a PCB, but it’s also wrapped in a couple pounds of aluminum, a power supply, cooling fans, and a few other things that don’t need to be consumables. Upgrade a mini or a studio by swapping the new board into the old case - yeah, you’re not saving much money, but you also don’t need to throw out the entire rest of the case, and you can ship the main board in the space of a couple CD cases. It’s a very non-Apple thing to do, but it’d be pretty awesome if they did.
- mhast 23d agoThe main PCB is pretty much everything that has value. The rest is a heatsink, case and PSU.
- jve 23d agoThink it would have same memory bandwidth if the RAM was upgradeable? Would be nice if someone knowledgeable about electrical engineering and manufacturing processes could lay out some valid reasons for manufacturers to integrate RAM onto the motherboard. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49041256#49082206 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49041256#49082206
- enragedcacti 23d agoIt isn't integrated into the motherboard, it's integrated onto the same package as the CPU/GPU which allows for better signal integrity and higher speeds. You can get somewhat close to the same speeds while modular with tech like LPCAMM2, but there are some pretty difficult challenges to overcome to close the gap completely. As an example, the Framework Laptop 13 Pro CPUs support up to 9600MT/s (same as M5), and Micron sells LPCAMM2 modules that can run at 8533MT/s, but the 13 Pro only officially supports 7467MT/s.
- mrheosuper 22d agoEach connector will introduce "insertion loss" to the chain, eating into your signal integrity budget. The SO DIMM Ram slot, which is designed, idk, 30 years ago? is not really capable of handling the frequency we are targeting (close to 10GT/s)
- mannanj 23d agoAbout 20 years ago my dad bought me a $5k computer, it was future proof for about "5 years" before we had to upgrade its internal parts (more memory, new graphics card). It was future proof but not really because it struggled a lot in its final years.
- sschueller 23d agoHe had that option,l. However buying apple hardware todqy you are stuck and need to replace all of it even if for example the CPU is plenty fast but you need more memory or GPU power.
- i5heu 23d agoMy 6 year old mediocre gaming PC is still a mediocre gaming PC. I expect it to stay a mediocre gaming PC for the next 3 years maybe 5 years. 16GB RAM RTX 3060 TI (8 GB VRAM)
- mannanj 21d agoNice. Curious, what do you play with that thing? Do you think you'll still play those in 3-5 years? And are there games you do want to play but can't?
- i5heu 21d agoI like to test new releases that are story heavy. I also like 4K with 90 to 120fps which leads me most of the time to use almost minimal settings. Look at steam hardware reviews. My setup is quite the default thing. Games optimize for it
- kridsdale1 23d agoI’d say something like a PS4 is future proof. $350 got like 10 years of modern software.
- olyjohn 22d agoNobody calls a PS4 a computer. We all know it is internally with the hardware, but the whole package makes it not a computer.
- zeusk 22d agoPS4 is as close as it gets to the colloquial computer; it's a AMD APU running BSD with homebrew linux builds available. And if not, would you consider a raspberry pi a computer? or your iphone a computer?
- moomoo11 23d agoi'd say it depends (as with everything) i'm still using an old i7 3770k @ 4.8ghz with 16gb (ddr3) ram running linux for random tasks like executing tests. obviously, power consumption is higher. my main machine is a MBP M1 Max which i use for everything. i also have my main linux desktop workstation that has a 5950x with 128gb (ddr4) ram. i'll probably get 2-5 years out of my MBP, and my AMD workstation will probably be good for another 5-10 years. i'm not a gamer, but i have a 3080. i'm sure my 5950x will still be good for gaming in 10 years if paired with a modern GPU.
- chmod775 23d agoThey do however last a much longer time now. A 8 years old graphics card can still play modern games. Ten years ago playing a modern game on hardware that old would've been unthinkable. And with how the market is right now, we'll be stuck on the current "reference level" of hardware for a while longer.
- pettijohn 22d agoI recently got a refurbished Strix Halo 128GB desktop for a steal ($2200) and I have a feeling it's going to be my last PC purchase for the next 3-5 years. Who knows how long this RAMpocalypse will last. My Lunar Lake 32GB laptop is already a couple years old, and it's not a speed demon but it ticks all the laptop boxes (portable, great battery).
- mrheosuper 22d ago>Computers are never "future proof". Till now. My thinkpad t14g1 with 16gb ram somehow still relevant today.
- LandR 22d agoMy main PC at home is 15 years old at this point, running linux. It's fine. I don't play games, but it still chugs along perfectly fine and for what I use it for I rarely think that it's too slow.
- alerighi 22d agoSame thing, I still have at home a desktop I've built when I was 17 (now I'm 30!) and still runs fine for day to day tasks, of course with Linux on it. It has 8Gb of RAM (DDR3), 512Gb SSD (not original of course because back then they did cost an astronomic price) and an i7 CPU that I've overclocked, an NVIDIA GPU with 2Gb of memory that still plays older games fine. To me there is no reason to update a PC if you don't use Windows or MacOS that forces you to purchase a new hardware to do the same things. Just look at Windows 11, full of useless AI features, weights a ton, and in the end it's probably faster a PC from 25 years ago with Windows XP.
- cma 23d ago3 of those thunderbolt 5 ports, so you can do a fully connected 4 machine cluster topology.
- blints 23d agoIt's unclear to me how bandwidth scales with multiple connections. Many-to-many does not seem ideal. Daisy chaining would be fine for straight pipeline work. There doesn't seem to be an equivalent of a ethernet switch for thunderbolt 5 though.
- kridsdale1 23d agoApple put on the announce page that 4 Studios in this config can run inference at 3x the speed as 1 Studio.
- cma 17d agoI read each has an independent controller for full bandwidth.
- dist-epoch 23d ago> 10 grand for 256GB memory. A NVIDIA RTX 6000, 96 GB at 1.7 TB/s, is 13 grand. This 256 GB at 1.2 TB/s Mac is extremely competitive, it will be sold out everywhere.
- angoragoats 23d agoExcept the RTX 6000 will run circles around the Mac studio in just about every way. Memory bandwidth is literally the only spec where Apple is competitive, and while high memory bandwidth is necessary for LLMs to perform well, many people strangely don't understand that memory bandwidth alone is not sufficient.
- F7F7F7 23d agoIt better because you’ll need a few of them to run some larger models (I’ll be just as vague citing which models).
- angoragoats 23d agoI was not speaking about specific models so I didn’t feel the need to cite any. Not sure why the backhanded insult was necessary. You need multiple Mac Studios to run the largest models as well, so neither is a one-size-fits-all device. If you can show me a model for which a Mac is faster than the RTX 6000 then I’ll be happy to update or retract my statement.
- speedgoose 23d agoEnergy efficiency is in another league with the Mac Studio for local workloads. I can run agents using deepseek v4 flash or Qwen 3.8 on my m3 ultra and it will be lukewarm and the fan will eventually start blowing softly.
- angoragoats 23d agoI’ve run the numbers on this, and an optimized nVidia build can meet or beat Apple platforms in terms of tokens per watt, which is the most important efficiency metric if what you care about is using the least amount of energy to generate a given response. Yes, the Mac might get lukewarm, but it will take 2-3+ times longer to do the same task.
- seanmcdirmid 23d ago10 grand for 256GB new Ultra sounds too cheap in today’s crazy DRAM market, it feels too good to be true.
- root_axis 23d agoThere is no "future proof" for >1T param models, there is no present or future where you can run a model that size on consumer hardware.
- bewareofscams 23d ago6 Mac Studios for 100k USD. Consider it a rule of thumb now - 100k to run 1T params, scales linearly.
- MPSimmons 23d agoOut of curiosity, what do you do to distribute the weights and inference across the multiple machines?
- fzzzy 23d agoThunderbolt 5, and software
- NamlchakKhandro 22d agoat a 100k$ you're not buying apple products to be limited by the 120gb/s thunderbolt port.
- root_axis 23d agoIf you have 100k you can just buy a few b200s.
- blints 22d agoOne does not simply "buy a few b200". They come in 8 packs minimally, at >5x that budget.
- blints 23d agoI don't know that "consumer hardware" is a useful distinction anymore, it's just "what's your budget and what's your speed requirement".
- SwellJoe 23d agoThat's in the same ballpark as two 128GB AI machines like the Asus GX10 or DGX Spark or Strix Halo. And, it seems very likely to perform better than either of those for inference. And, 256GB brings some pretty good models into play. But, that doesn't make it a good deal. It just means the Apple tax doesn't apply when stacked up against AI machines and with memory prices being so out of whack. I'm still planning to wait until the RAMpocalypse ends before I buy any more hardware.
- srmatto 23d agoIs there anything in the works or planned that suggests the RAMpocalypse will end anytime soon? e.g. new fabs being built, permitted, planned, etc...
- mrkstu 23d agoLots, if your time horizon is ~5 years for not buying new hardware, you're good. Otherwise you'll have to wait to see if the AI circular financing club collapses- if you still have a job, there should be deals to be had...
- SwellJoe 23d agoThere are signs that the money faucet is being turned down. Various investments that were announced have been quietly canceled or reduced in scale. I don't think it'll happen soon, but it seems unlikely to be more than a couple years. If I were a betting man, 12-18 months seems right. The AI companies that can make enough money will survive, the ones running on investor cash and debt, won't. Efficiency is improving, both in hardware and in software and in intelligence density (smaller models can effectively do more of the AI work that needs doing), so I think the pure data center plays will falter. If there isn't some other business attached, they're never going to recoup their investment. Anthropic and OpenAI are buying all the compute they can find right now, but efficiency gains, especially those coming out of Chinese labs where they must be more efficient to compete, will make it less and less of a problem. I mean, think about the hardware we use for AI. It's basically an accident. GPUs were not designed for AI (though they are becoming more focused on AI). The specialized AI hardware industry is just ramping up. So, we're still early in the curve for how efficient both the hardware and software can be at performing these tasks, and given the effectiveness of recent very small models (e.g. DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731 and Qwen 3.8 27B), I just don't see a long future for giant data centers built around billions of dollars worth of last years graphics cards. As with the crypto mining operations, at some point, it becomes more expensive to run the hardware than it makes in revenue. And, as with the crypto mining operations, when the money dries up, the hardware hits eBay and prices drop.
- make3 23d agoIt will always be wasteful to have a GPU sleeping next to you 99% of the time. Something like OpenRouter is the solution imho, for me at least. I realize that that some people care about privacy more though, and I respect that.