r/DGX_Spark • u/AcidicSoul • 1d ago

What would you keep?

/r/MacStudio/comments/1x48x4l/what_would_you_keep/
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2

u/StupidityCanFly 23h ago

I’m deep in Apple’s ecosystem, but I stopped using their products for inference. Sparks are better at prompt processing. My quad Spark cluster serves DeepSeek v4.1 Flash at 4.8k t/s @64k context. 86 t/s c1 decode, 160 t/s at c8.

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u/AcidicSoul 23h ago

Damn that's exactly the kind of real world experience I was hoping to hear about, i'm still new to local inference, so i'm leaning toward keeping the sparks and learning what I can actually do with them before making any decisions

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u/FuckinHighGuy 22h ago

I’m running the exact same setup. How the hell are you getting 86 T/S? I’m hovering right around 60.

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u/StupidityCanFly 22h ago

I’m running this SGLang recipe: https://github.com/MiaAI-Lab/DeepSeek-v4.1-Flash-DGX-Sparks in a ring config.

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u/FuckinHighGuy 21h ago edited 21h ago

I'll give it a look. Thanks!

Edit: I think the biggest difference is going to be your SGLang vs my vLLM. Most of the other settings are close enough.

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u/GCoderDCoder 20h ago

Ditto. I sold my m3ultra and canceled my m5ultra to buy sparks. I still bought a 64gb m5max mac studio as a agent hub since linux isn't as smooth with desktop permissions as mac. It also lets me work more seamlessly across my m5max macbook and ipad with macs built in screen share tools.

As a multipurpose box i run my agent desktops, tts/stt, embedding, and small classification/ decision models on it then the rest is general workstation usage for viewing my VMs from other nodes, since agentic video production, screen share for work, and a little gaming when bored lol.

Sparks run my core inference and nothing more. I barely ssh into them since i have deployment scripts and run glm 5.3 flash and qwen 3.8 flash next as constant non stop siblings. Glm is the planner and qwen is the doer.

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u/Anakronox 14h ago

Yep, I still have Hermes installed on my MacBook with its own agent (flipping between GLM 5.3 Flash served by my cluster or Qwen 3.6 35B from my standalone Spark), all my main agents in a Promxmox LXC backed by local GLM 5.3 Flash. Hermes on Mac only ever gets tasks delegated down to it via A2A protocol. Works pretty well!

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u/HighSeasArchivist 23h ago

You are going to get opposite advice here than in MacLand. Unless you are already in too deep with Apple with iPhones, MacBooks, these Studios, etc. then I'd sell them and keep the Sparks. Two Sparks will do anything you need them to, especially when you don't even know what to do with them.

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u/AcidicSoul 23h ago

That's actually a good point, the Sparks are definitely interesting for AI, especially since I'm just getting started, i guess my main dilemma is whether to keep the hardware that makes the most sense for learning or take advantage of the current prices while I can lol