Thread

M5 Ultra Mac Studio Review

269 points · 262 comments · piotrgrabowski

sghiassy · 1790003312 · focus · HN ↗
Imagine spending a trillion dollars on data centers and then reading this article. Nightmare fuel for OpenAI
1. whalesalad · 1790003611 · focus · HN ↗
  For 99.99% of people, spending 15 grand on a Mac Studio just to run Qwen 3.8 locally is a non starter.
  1. jmull · 1790006069 · focus · HN ↗
    It's not the M5 Ultra itself, but the M7s or M9s that will do the damage.
    99% of people will use whatever AI is free. The sophisticated, heavy users that are willing and able to pay a lot of money the ones that will be interested in controlling their inference bills.
    Today, the sweet spot where an M5 Ultra makes sense is tiny. But we might expect that to grow a lot.
    BatFastard · 1790010501 · focus · HN ↗
    Anthropic is reporting 100 Billion ARR.
    Even if you could get a frontier model, you would not be able to run it on any Mac. So speculating on what M7 or M9 will achieve in 5 years (if we even still exist) seems pointless.
    sghiassy · 1790010961 · focus · HN ↗
    Do you need a frontier model to write emails, check your calendar, search the web?
    I don’t think Apple is going to lie down and cede AI to the cloud.
    BatFastard · 1790019799 · focus · HN ↗
    True, but do you need a 10,000 dollar machine to do so?
    I would love to find an excuse to buy a 10,000 dollar machine! But I cant find one yet. My current cloud bill is in excess of 400 USD per month. Just can't achieve frontier model capabilities locally.
    sghiassy · 1790044830 · focus · HN ↗
    I think in 5 years (aka before OpenAI can pay off all its debt) a lot of AI will be running on your iPhone
    bigyabai · 1790118709 · focus · HN ↗
    People thought that 5 years ago, too. OpenAI has competitors to worry about, but Apple isn't one of them.

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