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Posted by piotrgrabowski 1 day ago

M5 Ultra Mac Studio Review(www.macstories.net)
256 points | 252 commentspage 2
sethd 17 hours ago|
I find it funny that the thing always mentioned with this machine is local AI. If you're a local model enthusiast, then maybe that makes sense, but I just don't see the economics working there.

I ordered the same one for work so I could run more local agents at once (many iOS simulators and Xcode build processes).

mtsolitary 18 hours ago||
Waiting for my 64GB M5 Pro Mini, hoping it will also be fun to tinker with for local AI
SamuelAdams 23 hours ago||
I think Apple is really sleeping on making this run a Linux server. These things are very capable and draw very little wattage when idle. It would make an excellent homelab device, but MacOS currently holds it back in this regard.
flounder3 22 hours ago||
https://mac.getutm.app/
jjtheblunt 20 hours ago||
i use linux a ton too, but still wonder what you want in a Linux server that macos as a BSD server does not have.
Gracana 19 hours ago||
I'll probably manage with Mac OS well enough, but my linux distro comes out of the box with all the latest OSS tooling I'm familiar with, plus a package manager, and it has linux cgroups and namespaces that power the container technologies we all know and love.

If I switch to Mac OS, I have to sort out a package manager and install all the stuff that's missing, and when it comes to containers... they're just linux VMs. I'd happily cut out the weird proprietary middleman if I could.

Danox 16 hours ago||
Linux for argument’s sake, may have a few things that are better than Mac OS but Apple being the last vertical computer company from the 1980s, I don’t think they have any interest in using Linux, not after Next, Motorola, IBM, Intel and Nvidia in the past. They don’t need to they appear to navigate thru tech very well in comparison to Microsoft or Intel, for example.
crossroadsguy 22 hours ago||
My mac is 5 years old. I don't think I can comfortably buy a new one right now. It has a 16GB unified RAM. Honestly that would be enough for so many local models that I want to use but can't use. Because RAM usage (even with literally every single user installed app quit/stopped) the RAM usage is very high that I can barely safely get 6-7 GB (I am supposed to get ~10 GB, but it goes up and down real fast!). That's a shame. If only I could install an alternative OS that uses very little amount of RAM :-)
mjlee 20 hours ago||
How are you measuring memory usage? top tells me that 45/48GB is "used", but Activity Monitor shows me that 24GB is cached files.

I'd be quite surprised if Mac OS alone needs more than 8GB, given that they sell the Neo with 8GB of RAM today.

odkdkekfkwjf 17 hours ago||
Free RAM is wasted RAM.
theplumber 22 hours ago||
At this point I think I will get the DGX gb300 workstation though I will wait a bit more for the cold season. It is double the price but at least is the real thing
lowbloodsugar 18 hours ago|
Double?? They are nearly $100k.
mstaoru 17 hours ago||
What do people realistically do with these? It's too slow and du... not SOTA-level for coding. It's way too slow for video. I tried simulating an "Fable herding Qwen subagents" and it takes much longer and delivers a much worse result than Fable/Astra alone.
manyatoms 16 hours ago|
You run Hermes and have a personal assistant.

You run uncensored local models where you can ask questions that would get denied by public providers, or questions that you prefer them not to know the intricate details (like your financial planning)

mstaoru 8 hours ago|||
Ah I see. I guess people who have spare $10-20k on a PC to run a "personal assistant" perhaps really benefit from a personal assistant. A niche in itself.
apexalpha 7 hours ago||
You're just spending money to have the computer value normal people will have a few years from now.

There's value in knowing what capabilities local models will have on regular hardware in the near future.

EricE 15 hours ago|||
That people still put sensitive information into cloud based AIs still boggles my mind.
addaon 23 hours ago||
Ordered one for OpenFOAM. Excited for it. Will be nice to not have my laptop running CFD 24 hours a day, but my M1 Max is currently my fastest machine… I’m expecting about 3.5x from the M5 Ultra.
snarfy 1 day ago||
$12,299
andrekandre 23 hours ago|
5 years of (200/month) tokens at that price, meanwhile an rtx 5090 pc is about half that… hmm

but i wonder how much these token costs are sustainable or not, it may be in the long term cheaper to have your own hardware if token costs go up (and hopefully hardware gets cheaper again)

drdaeman 19 hours ago|||
Those tokens aren’t guaranteed (esp. with RE and security tasks - rooted my own TV last week, Claude crapped out on “cyber safety” grounds; but also no guarantees about the model served - providers can pull a switcheroo on weights or quantization at any moment, and new options may not work for you), and you’re throwing money at entities that aren’t aligned with your interests instead of entities who are interested in actually empowering you.
bel8 17 hours ago||
> Claude crapped out on “cyber safety” grounds.

A $10/mo subscription to OpenCode Go would have done the job for you.

They have models like Kimi K3, Grok 4.6 , GLM-5.3, Mimo 2.6 Pro (launched today, already available) which are happy to follow your orders without accusing you of being a terrorist.

https://models.dev/providers/opencode/

chasd00 22 hours ago||||
The token price isn't the only reason to run a model locally though. You can do additional training to specialize or remove censorship that may be a no-no per TOS with cloud GPUs.
drdaeman 19 hours ago||
Cloud GPUs have ToS about purposes you’re allowed to crank numbers for?

I thought this only applies to LLM inference providers, but not raw GPU rentals.

Eisenstein 20 hours ago|||
$2200 for a 64GB VRAM machine if you are willing to do a bit of work.

* https://imgur.com/mpdorVJ

BatchJob 23 hours ago||
If you are buying expensive hardware to run LLMs "on your own machine" you will soon find your ladder is on the wrong wall.
crorella 22 hours ago|
What are good options to run local models nowadays? Something good for coding and personal assistant kind of things
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