Thread

M5 Ultra Mac Studio Review

269 points · 262 comments · piotrgrabowski

simonw · 1790001122 · focus · HN ↗
The numbers I was most interested in are tucked away in a chart towards the bottom - the speed comparison of the Mac Studios v.s. a RTX 5090:
```
  Qwen3.8 27B tokens&#x2F;sec generation speed

  Prompt size    8K    64K   128K   256K
  RTX 5090 PC    59    51    44     n&#x2F;a
  M5 Ultra       48    39    32     24
  M3 Ultra       31    23.5  20     15
```
A whole bunch more comparison numbers in this section: <a href="https://www.macstories.net/stories/m5-ultra-mac-studio-review-the-dream-mac-for-local-ai-agents/#mx-pc" rel="nofollow">https://www.macstories.net/stories/m5-ultra-mac-studio-revie...
1. gpugreg · 1790003246 · focus · HN ↗
  Those RTX 5090 numbers are bad. You can get over 200 tps with ninfer using NVFP4 and MTP.
  1. beastman82 · 1790006689 · focus · HN ↗
    can confirm.
    I dont' know why people spend huge money on these and Spark. The 5090 is running qwen 3.8 at 200+ tps!! That's 1-2 orders of magnitude faster.
    _hugerobots_ · 1790009436 · focus · HN ↗
    Have a 5090, and yes it's very fast. But it's like the worst ADHD team member and requires constant supervision and review from larger models. It's context size on-card is good for super, suuuuuper shallow precision work. The gb10/spark on top of it, that thing can refactor enormous monorepo architecture. The time it takes the 5090 to compact, reiterate and execute a plan is often the same time as the gb10.
    louthy · 1790022971 · focus · HN ↗
    > it's like the worst ADHD team member and requires constant supervision
    Perhaps consider some non-offensive language for your comparison?
    pseudosaid · 1790050052 · focus · HN ↗
    could you not be like that? provide alternative language or go away. If youre offended, say so and be real. Noncommittal posits of personal preference are linguistic mosquitos of communication. on the flip side, how dare you disenfranchise a legitimate adhd perspective. one that i would say is entirely valid as someone functionally crippled by such plight. If you truly are offended, perhaps there is some truth you are reacting to preventing you from truly responding in good faith. words are lame like that ya? mine are as nauseating as your flyby ego droppings.
    louthy · 1790063018 · focus · HN ↗
    > could you not be like that? provide alternative language or go away. If youre offended, say so and be real.
    Ok, as somebody with ADHD I find it offensive because I don't need constant supervision, implying people with ADHD need constant supervision is belittling and just plain wrong. So, I will call out an offensive trope if I see it.
    > If you truly are offended, perhaps there is some truth you are reacting to preventing you from truly responding in good faith
    No, because if there was some truth to it, I wouldn't be offended. Perhaps stop with the amateur psychology? You're not very good at it.

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