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Thelio Mira AI Linux Workstation: 192 GB GPU Memory
- swiftcoder 8d ago$37,000 in GPUs. Man, I never expected another PC manufacturer to make Apple's top configuration look cheap by comparison.
- embedding-shape 8d agoCalculate what performance you get per $ spent, and Apple again looks the most expensive out of probably anything else you could buy.
- swiftcoder 7d agoAre you sure about that? For the price of the top configuration here you can buy a 5-stack of 256GB Mac Studio M5 Ultras. This dual NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 setup has 192GB of VRAM at 1.8 TB/s, versus the 5-stack of Macs that collectively have 1.25 TB at 1.2 TB/second... I'm not convinced that equation comes out in Nvidia's favour.
- embedding-shape 7d agoRight, performance is more than just the aggregated memory speed of the hardware you have. I'm fairly sure, at least last time I looked, maybe Apple launched something new in the last 2-3 months that has completely changed the picture?
- swiftcoder 7d ago> performance is more than just the aggregated memory speed of the hardware you have In other fields, sure, but for big LLMs it's a very significant part of the performance picture. That stack of Macs also is going to be able to natively run models 4-5x larger than the dual Blackwells can hold in memory - any model over about 128GB of weights isn't going to fit on the GPUs, and is going to be heavily performance constrained by moving data across the PCIE bus. > maybe Apple launched something new in the last 2-3 months that has completely changed the picture Indeed. The M5 Ultra (currently up for pre-order) has 50% higher memory bandwidth than its predecessor, and a claimed 4x improvement in prompt prefill.
- embedding-shape 7d ago> any model over about 128GB of weights isn't going to fit on the GPUs Not sure if you misunderstand what GPUs we're talking about, one RTX Pro 6000 has 96GB of VRAM. > Indeed. The M5 Ultra (currently up for pre-order) has 50% higher memory bandwidth than its predecessor, and a claimed 4x improvement in prompt prefill. Exciting! Eagerly awaiting the benchmarks and comparisons then. Lets hope "4x improvement" had a good enough baseline so 4x actually ends up useful in practice compared to the current hardware they offer. > 50% higher memory bandwidth Seems this lands on ~1.2 TB/s if what Apple claims is correct. For reference, RTX Pro 6000 does 1.8 TB/s, so seems Apple is indeed getting closer incrementally.
- swiftcoder 7d ago> Not sure if you misunderstand what GPUs we're talking about, one RTX Pro 6000 has 96GB of VRAM. Right, but the top option here is a pair of RTX Pro 6000s, hence 192 GB of VRAM in total. Should be enough for a 128GB model plus context, cache, etc.
- embedding-shape 7d agoYeah, that's why the "any model over about 128GB of weights isn't going to fit on the GPUs" part doesn't make sense, you'll easily be able to run weights in that weight class on two of them. Or did I misunderstand what "on the GPUs" you meant?
- swiftcoder 7d agoRight, easily run 128-160 GB models, yes. Not easily run models much larger than that. Anything that doesn't fit in the 192 GB (including context, cache, etc) is going to have to be sparse/MoE, and the rather anaemic PCIE bandwidth is going to hurt. By comparison, the 5x Mac cluster should be able to run a dense ~800GB-1TB model without a drastic slowdown.
- bitbasher 8d agoIt only costs $40,000.
- mandeepj 8d agothe landing page showed "$3,299.00" and I had my candy store moment for a few secs.
- jgalt212 8d ago5 years ago I could not afford top shelf coders. Now I cannot afford top shelf machines.
- jillesvangurp 8d agoPeople routinely buy cars that cost double that. This is a machine that people that typically earn six figure salaries use to do their work on. Exactly the target demographic that would buy/lease expensive cars as well. And then those get used mainly to commute to work. I don't really need one. But I do have a 4.5K mac book pro for work. Yes it's a bit overpowered. But it's the main vehicle with which I earn a living and it routinely saves me time by blazing through builds and generally doing things quickly for me. I have slightly more GPU on that thing than I need. But it's nice to have the option to experiment with some of the open weight AI models.
- coffeebeqn 8d agoAnd you would buy it through your company so it won’t be quite as much net. Surely no one is buying these just for fun
- embedding-shape 8d ago> Surely no one is buying these just for fun -_- Some of us worked hard in life and have spare money, sue me!
- embedding-shape 8d ago> People routinely buy cars that cost double that. Maybe it's the "routinely" or the "people" part, but "people" generally don't ever buy a 80K car, it's a small fraction of the population who can afford such luxury cars. And I'm sure the ones who buy cars for 80K, unless they're car enthusiasts or just plain billionaires, don't do so "routinely" either.
- rkagerer 8d agoWhat motherboard do they use? (Or do they design their own now?)
- xeeeeeeeeeeenu 8d agoThe ASUS logo is visible in the photo of the innards.
- embedding-shape 8d agoI'm guessing it'll depend on the GPU (and CPU) choice, putting the cheapest that is sufficient for the choice.
- arjie 8d agoHaha, bloody hell, mate. $17k a pop? I bought these for $8k-ish. That's bonkers to buy this when newer flash models won't fit on this any more. DeepSeek V4 Flash seems the last in its line, and then you have to count on Qwen Next. Seems like a waste honestly.
- embedding-shape 8d agoSeems they might be selling a combo of dual RTX Pro 6000 workstation cards (non-refundable), but the setup they have, unless they change how the GPUs cooling work, isn't gonna work out thermally if you stack two of those workstation cards on top of each other. But it doesn't say WS or "Workstation", so I suppose could be the server variant too? But also doesn't say... Hope they have good overall cooling the case, cooling doesn't seem to be mentioned, it'll be a noisy little machine no doubt :)
- rkagerer 8d agoPage mentions liquid cooling, for what it's worth.
- wmf 8d agoThey're [Max-Q] blower cards and there's a big gap between them so the cooling looks fine.
- embedding-shape 8d agoSo the two variants they offer is the Max-Q and the Server edition one, but only explicitly mentioned for one? Edit: The Max-Q is one of the options, what's the other option then?
- nightski 8d agoSeeing as it adds a second PSU, I'm guessing the workstation one.
- embedding-shape 8d agoThat's bananas, unless they also water cool them, would easily overheat if it's just two bog standard workstation cards on top of each other. Are they possibly selling setups they haven't actually tested practically in the real world?
- lxe 8d agoI thought it was a pricing mistake. But no, you just have to select the variations. $42,412.00
- mcbuilder 8d agoI had to do a double take myself, scrolled down and arrived at a similar number. Wish I built this a few years ago!
- felixfurtak 8d agoMe three
- slowmovintarget 8d agoYeah, I bought a Thelio Major three years ago. I'm kicking myself for not going dual-4090s for a mere $10K back then.
- mandeepj 8d agoHopefully it will come down to that price point or cheaper again in the next 3-4 years?
- matheusmoreira 8d agoHopefully... If it doesn't, mere mortals like us consumers are going to be priced out of computers altogether. It'll be the end of the personal computing era and a return to big iron mainframes.
- slowmovintarget 7d ago"All of this has happened before, and will happen again."
- AngryData 6d agoOn the highest end maybe. But people have had some sucess DIYing some semi-modern lithography semiconductor production.
- senectus1 8d agowouldnt you be better off maxing out the new Mac hardware? the memory bandwidth is insane on those jobbies
- bigyabai 8d agoIf your goal is pure GPU compute, you should have got a 5090. It can bench comparable to the RTX 6000 Pro cards and is near guaranteed to outperform M5 Ultra.
- wmf 8d agoTwo RTX 6000 have more FLOPS and more memory bandwidth than a M5 Ultra (but they also cost more).
- rubyn00bie 8d agoThere’s roughly 50% more memory bandwidth on an RTX 6000 pro versus the M5 Ultra. I imagine it really comes down to what you’re doing, I know my 5090 runs laps around the M5 Pro I have when it comes to local LLM performance (until it runs out of memory). If it wasn’t for the fact the 6000 Pro is selling for like 100% ($9,000) over MSRP it would probably look a lot more reasonable.
- fsuts 8d agoDepends on your use case If running models then Apple is fine, if training or tuning or large number of users then Nvidia is king
- cherioo 8d agoThis makes Mac Studio with 256GB memory look cheap in comparison. More memory to store weight at a quarter of the price!
- colordrops 8d agoIt's gonna have WAY faster token rates than that Mac Studio though, enough to be a qualitative rather than quantitative difference.
- thom 8d agoI remember losing sleep when I bought my RTX Pro 6000, but somehow they keep going up in price, and waddya know I’ve even done real work that appreciates the VRAM size.
- embedding-shape 8d agoSame. Had to convince the wife, initially aimed to get two of them, ended up with one. Now my wife is berating me for not convincing her that I should have bought four and then sell two later... Can't win :)
- nullbio 8d agoNew car or a Thelio. Tough decision.
- catchnear4321 8d agoI bought a spark instead of a motorcycle so it’s somewhat relative and it’s also somewhat relative.
- whartung 8d agoThere was a time when I sold my computer and bought a motorcycle. Can honestly say that was one of the best trades I’ve ever done. I didn’t buy another computer for 3 more years.
- embedding-shape 8d agoSold my computer + DLSR camera back in the day to afford moving countries. Can't imagine what life would have been if I didn't, very happy I did. Lived with a netbook for 2-3 years, but was before I was a professional programmer.
- andsoitis 8d agoSecond-hand car is more rational than new car.
- LoganDark 8d agoIs it more powerful than Apple silicon, or why would anyone buy this? Just for Linux? Oh, it's System76, that's why. Open hardware. Makes sense. Edit: Also Nvidia
- wmf 8d agoIt is more powerful than Apple.
- LoganDark 8d agoI wonder why Apple has not really pushed their memory bandwidth numbers. They're starting to catch up to 2020 at this point -- cool, but still struggling to run years-old models. (FLOPS is even further behind by a year or two) Maybe they're waiting on HBM? Given that they're skipping M6 Max to go straight for M7, I'd assume they're doing a redesign for it.
- wmf 8d agoGDDR has higher latency and much lower capacity. HBM requires an interposer and also has lower capacity. It's not an easy choice. The M7 family will probably double memory bandwidth using LPDDR6.
- LoganDark 8d agoSo the MacBooks might get roughly the M5 Ultra's bandwidth in a couple years. Not bad -- my M4 Max is currently stuck in 2016
- kelvie 8d agoThe prefill rates are way faster on these cards compared to apple silicon, which affects TTFT and therefore usability for a lot of coding tasks, unless you fire and forget most of the time.
- numpad0 8d agoMac GPUs supposedly being fastest thing on Earth obsoleting everything NVIDIA is just pure marketing. It was just faster once than some midrange laptop NVIDIA, which conveniently wasn't explicitly marked as different chip sharing the branding with the desktop variant(oof). The real benefits to going Mac is its quiet and discreet, high wife/CEO acceptance design, and their huge GPU-assignable shared RAM. If you're okay with your desk being the wing top of a flying airplane, and 3M Peltor or David-Clark is your favorite working time headphone brand anyway, then your build will be faster and cheaper than a maxed out Mac Studio.
- rubyn00bie 8d agoAnyone know why they chose a consumer grade CPU on this? I’m a little surprised to see a 9950X as the top option. There’s not enough PCIe lanes available to run everything without bifurcation. I imagine the GPUs probably aren’t too bothered generally… but the NVMe drives are likely to slow down as a result. A Threadripper ain’t cheap, but if you’re spending $45k on a workstation it seems like a weird place to skimp. Not to mention you’d then have the option of shoveling a few more 6000 pros in it when you want to run something larger (assuming your home/office electrical box can support it).
- dannyw 8d agoYou need far more absurdly expensive RAM (RDIMM/ECC?) for a threadripper. Like 4x more expensive.
- rubyn00bie 8d agoAye but at $45k you’re so deep already is that really worth the savings? It’s so much easier to manage a single system, and the performance will be in absolute terms better. Truly, I get your point, but $45k is obscene for a workstation (because of the RAM shortage). I can’t fathom it being a reasonable decision[1] unless you’re able to churn an immense profit from it. And… if you can, it’s an expense that saves time, energy, and effort. If it is only profitable when $8k in price difference makes it viable, is that really worth the effort? An $8k increase making a difference, when you’re wholly dependent on the frontier (or near frontier) lab not releasing a model that makes your work(station) irrelevant— seems reckless. Couple that with the doubling of DeepSeek’s parameters for their flash model… and well the math just don’t math for my naive brain. [1] I’m absolutely incapable of spending that much on a workstation so my opinions may be irrelevant… but I cannot understand the “stepping over quarters to save a penny” mentality[2]. [2] I could be missing the forest for the trees. As a result, I’d love to know how I am being shortsighted. I just can’t fathom a situation where an $8k surcharge in system RAM doesn’t make sense. It’s not about system RAM, it’s about GPU RAM, margins, and useful lifetime of the system.
- dannyw 8d ago
- chaostheory 8d agoHow is this interesting compared to either a Mac Studio or Nvidia Spark? Did I miss something?
- wmf 8d agoThis is a tier above the best Mac Studio and two tiers above the Spark.
- coffeebeqn 8d agoBig GPUs
- protocolture 8d agoDo I want one? Yes. Can I afford it? Absolutely not.
- layer8 8d ago> Accelerate your AI development with Thelio Mira AI, System76's affordable, GPU-focused workstations From $3,299 (with just 64 GB RAM and a 4 GB GPU) to over $50,000. Very affordable indeed.
- rrgok 8d agoIs this just a marketing stunt? From a completely ignorant user, doesn't AI reeuqires high bandwidth ram (like the GPU)? Is really DDR5’s bandwidth enough?
- ethin 8d agoI absolutely love system76. Never owned one of their desktop machines, but I have a couple of their older laptops and they work fantastically for me. As in I can easily get a decade out of them and replace the batteries every few years. One of them is almost a decade old ironically enough.
- halz 8d agoI'd really like to just buy some collective shares of a GB300 NVL72 in a datacenter somewhere and have a daily token quota on a shared DeepSeek model or whatever was hot that week. I would just need to find ~100 like-minded folks at this $40k per share price to get started haha.
- vitno 7d agoI've thought a little bit about this, really I suspect you'd actually want maybe 20 folks for about a 20k buy-in and a dedicated 8×B300. You could get some pretty sweet token/s. Probably a community/coop share structure. It'd be better than the GB300 which is fairly throughput optimized (not needed for 20ish folk)
- Tsiklon 8d agoThat memory speed drop going from single DIMM per channel DDR5 to dual DIMM per channel is very much notable - 3600MT/s is barely any faster than what DDR4 could do in it's final days. The CPU market seems to be missing the "HEDT" platform we used to enjoy.
- tpm 8d agoThreadripper (4 or 8 memory channels)
- waterTanuki 8d agoI find it hard to believe any enterprise willing to drop over $40k on a workstation PC would choose `Pop!_OS 24.04 LTS with the COSMIC Desktop Environment` over Ubuntu.
- brendanmc6 7d agoWhy? It is built from Ubuntu[1]. I am a very happy full-time daily user. Anecdotally it is more stable and productive than Windows ever was for me, and plenty of enterprises use windows… [1]https://system76.com/support/difference-between-pop-ubuntu https://system76.com/support/difference-between-pop-ubuntu
- nubinetwork 8d agoNobody seems to have noticed that they dropped their ampere-based thelio.
- alescalaios 8d ago[dead]
- fsuts 8d agoSpeaking of AMD CPU’s, how is Strix Halo coming along? As that’s unified memory à la Apple and I think up to 128gb
- pulkas 8d agoThelio Mira AI $3,299.00 Description Specs Warranty Accelerate your AI development with Thelio Mira AI, System76's affordable, GPU-focused workstations, built for local AI development — so you can train, fine-tune, and iterate challenging AI workloads entirely on your own hardware. Configure Thelio Mira with up to: 16-core AMD Ryzen 9000 Series CPU 192 GB DDR5 RAM Dual NVIDIA RTX Pro 6000 GPU 192 GB GPU memory this is miss leading. actually it is 4gb ram a400 price. dual RTX6000 price is : $40,538.00
- andy99 8d agoWhen I saw the 192GB I first thought they might have beat Framework to market with a Gorgon Halo machine with unified RAM that Framework has teased. This is just a GPU workstation.
- tomaytotomato 8d agoCan't wait for in 10 years time to find one of these workstations on eBay selling for £100-150 Then I will do a video of me playing Crysis on it
- embedding-shape 8d agoSlightly related, Crysis running on a RTX Pro 6000 via Proton :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5XDaO6b0uY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5XDaO6b0uY
- heronbank 8d agok is single H100 money. The workstation form factor only makes sense if you're locked out of cloud GPU allocation.
- Artoooooor 7d agoDamn, what a misleading price.
- poppafuze 7d agoif it goes over pcie to get to each other, it's not really "gpu memory"
- freechelmi 5d agoA bit ridiculous , a Maxed Mac studio would beat that in most of the AI cases