* 256GB - $10,799
* 512GB - $22,299
(M5 Ultra with just 1TB of storage)
https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2025/15-tb-vram-on-mac-stu...
Now the equivalent M5 Ultra (36-core CPU / 80-core GPU with 512GB of RAM) is priced at $22,299.
They were built like a brick shithouse and felt expensive. You always knew they belonged to someone else.
In other words you couldn't mistake them for an $800 Mac Mini.
Now try imagining a SGI workstation with 512GB of SOLDERED DOWN RAM. You can't because no one would have bought them.
But your main point still stands.
If anything the interesting models that can run in about 64gb of memory are increasing because most people can’t access more memory than that. I’m especially excited for clef and cleric as they continue to improve. Yeah, you don’t get 1mil token context length, but even frontier models can lose focus at that level
I've been tempted to just get the M5 Max instead and just innovate with smaller models myself.
Further they’ve already begun hyping the M7 Ultra and even if that got delayed until 2028, this machine only being SOTA for 1.5yrs is a hilariously short window in which to maximize your investment.
At $30,000 it's sure an expensive hobby. You could get into Caterham racing for that...
I personally believe that local LLMs have a huge captive market for people who cannot or should not host that data with a third-party. For example, it's an open question of whether or not using cloud LLMs by lawyers breaks attorney-client privilege. HIPAA with medical records is another one.
But I want to expound on one point that you made, which is really important. You say that this spec only has a SOTA life of ~1.5 years and that's an issue. Take that to its natural conclusion. Why isn't it an issue for hyperscalar data centers, particularly as NVidia wants to move to annual chip updates.
I believe the hardware is going to be commoditized. At that point the only thing that matters is performance-per-Watt. NVidia's R100/200 doesn't make the B100/200 obsolete but if the R series gets 50-100% PPW more and these DCs are using gigawatts of power, that's a massive difference.
What really is the effective life of AI hardware?
prices shoot by just choosing the 128gb option and even worse the 512gb option.
How many Chrome tabs do you have open?
1. Will the RAM shortage turn into a RAM glut & crash in the next year?
2. Even if that happens, will Apple just keep prices sky high anyway?
The 512 GB ultra seems too expensive. You can buy multiples of the cheaper one. Like 4 of the 128 GB max, or 2 of the 256 GB ultras for less. (And end up with more total bandwidth and storage and compute).
Unless there is some sort of restriction on number per customer.
CFD, for me. Depends on how you segment the domain, but the speed hit can be significant.
This thing looks like the ashtray you'd find next to it.
Anyway I'd get the same feeling every time I opened a Sun server. The metal work alone felt like fine industrial craftsmanship.
It would absolutely represent either a mis-estimation of demand or compromise to some supply/manufacturing bottleneck that they couldn't overcome without sending their release calendar into chaos.
Those are hard-to-beat features for typical Apple users, for sure, but this is aiming for a different niche and the potential buyers in that niche may not be as concerned with form factor or power draw (for instance), and some may even see the OS as a negative factor. Those are just factors that happen to come along for the ride since it happens to be an Apple product.
Did you know the McRib is back?
But only for a limited time so you better act fast!
That doesn't really matter though for a physical product, unless you are implying they are 1) selling it at a loss or 2) not attempting to maximize profits from the product. If they sell out, it means they hit the target profit from the sale of the product.
What on earth is a "natural conclusion" in this context? I'm going to assume that part of your comment was written by AI.
> Why isn't it an issue for hyperscalar data centers, particularly as NVidia wants to move to annual chip updates.
Because he's not a hyperscaler? He's not operating data centers where compute is fungible, he's buying an individual machine that he wants to use for years. He can't just keep buying a new machine and fob off the old one to someone else's less demanding workload.
Add to that the smattering people with genuinely justifiable use cases, and you have more than enough demand for a limit-pushing, highest-margin model of your product platform.
I hate to break it to you but the same thing has happened with cars. Many in-demand performance cars like the GT3 RS have been appreciating.
nsagent•1h ago
After taking a look the $11.5k premium over the 256GB might not be worth it. Gonna have to mull over the decision and possibly buy two 256GB machines instead (which might be the smarter option).
pseudony•1h ago
Uncle_Brumpus•59m ago
...Right?
nostromo•50m ago
Nobody is buying these to write Word docs and play MP3s.
Uncle_Brumpus•43m ago
ForceBru•43m ago
Creamsicle47•1h ago