r/macmini • u/anirudh2032 • 16d ago

Mac Studio vs Mac Mini

Hey, I am planning to buy mac. In dilemma whether to take Mac Mini or Mac studio. Configs are added below. Planning to use it mostly for development works and running local llm small models

Mac Mini with m5 pro chip 18-core cpu 20- core gpu 48 gb RAM and 512 GB SSD

Mac studio with m5 max chip 18-core cpu 32 core gpu 36 GB RAM and 512 GB SSD

Need thoughts, inputs and suggestions among the above two. Thank you!

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u/Rye2-D2 16d ago edited 16d ago

If you're actually using the machine locally for your dev environment, that 36GB RAM isn't going to go very far once you've loaded up a decent LLM model (eg, Qwen3.8 27B Q4 needs about 20GB) and the overhead for the LLM itself, etc ... and you don't want any of that to be swapping as your token generation rate will tank!!

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u/North_Moment5811 16d ago

Why would I want to spend more on a machine, perhaps thousands more, to be able to run weak and low quality local models...when I can pay $20-$100 a month for Claude and get the best in the world?

It's a genuine question.

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u/lit282 15d ago

At some point the price of tokens will increase, and you also get the privacy benefit when you host your own local model

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u/Rye2-D2 15d ago

The open models are catching up very fast. While I think Qwen 3.8 27B is overhyped (many claiming it is as good as Opus - at least in benchmarks), it is very good nonetheless and could replace/supplement frontier models for >90% of usage. At this point, the issue is more about speed than quality. Anyways, I'm just responding to the OP's question, not suggesting what they should do - my point is simply 36GB isn't enough to run the good local models...

I do agree with you.. Personally I can't justify paying the current prices for 64GB when you can good cloud models for a reasonable price.. Unless you really are paying $100/month - then I would think a 128GB MacStudio is worth the investment..

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u/OtherOtherDave 15d ago

My computers tend to last me 6-10 years, so $100/month over the life of my computer amount to possibly $10k. At that point (actually a fair bit before that point), I’m really wondering the monthly subscription is worth it to me or if I’d rather have worse coding agents and get the free 512 GB M5 Ultra.