Posted by jonifico 11 hours ago
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.
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.
-_-
Some of us worked hard in life and have spare money, sue me!
Can honestly say that was one of the best trades I’ve ever done. I didn’t buy another computer for 3 more years.
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).
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.
Hmm, why? I don't understand why better models being available remotely would change the usefulness of what you already have working locally? If it works for you, it works, regardless of what the frontier labs have, and if it doesn't, it doesn't, again regardless.
So they offer both options.
EG As I gazed at Janice, joy with equal part contentment washed through my soul.
Oh, it's System76, that's why. Open hardware. Makes sense.
Edit: Also Nvidia
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.
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.