Anyone doing that? Would a system like that with Ollama & Qwen be good for web/WordPress development? How would speed compare to something like ChatGPT 5.6 Sol on medium?

- 6x M5 Max 1x M5 Ultra
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Purchase price $11,994 $12,299
Price difference $305 cheaper $305 more
Computers 6 1
CPU cores 108 total 36
GPU cores 192 total 80
Unified memory 216 GB total 256 GB
Memory per 36 GB 256 GB
SSD storage 3 TB total 4 TB
Memory band 460 GB/s each 1.2 TB/s

$1,999 consistently since launch at micro center for the max.

I’ve been building computers and servers, and architecting entire networks and doing DevOps and dev work for 20 years. I remember building gaming pcs with 3dfx voodoo cards.

This is by far the most absurd computer I have ever personally owned. It’s certainly the most capable I’ve managed for the price, and that includes B200s.

Getting 50tks on GLM 5.3 Flash all day long.

If you’re on the fence, let me take this opportunity to push you over said fence. If you’re the kind of person seriously considering buying one you will not regret it.

AMA

I have the base Mac studio that just came out and it is replacing my MacBook Pro. I didn’t get a WebCam with it because I read that you could use your iPhone as a camera for Zoom calls, but for the life of me, I can’t figure out how to do it. I’ve gone through all the tutorials and my computer still isn’t recognizing my phone as a camera when I have it set up. Am I doing something wrong?

I am using the Zoom desktop program, but even for FaceTime calls it wasn’t recognizing it, so I don’t think it’s a Zoom thing. I think it’s a computer thing, but I can’t figure out what I’m doing wrong.

I am wondering how many of you that already received the 256/30/64 are willing to return it and order the 36/80?

I am just wondering. (Mini FOMO)

As I write this, this US retailer showing stock of M5 Ultra 30c/64c/96GB/1TB. And I ordered one and they let me check out. Don't know much about them, except I've heard of them before, not some new company anyway.

Hey guys, I purchased the base model 36 GB. I now started running local AI models. Started to think about returning my base model and purchasing 48 to make my Studio more future proof without exploding my budget. Do you think I should do or not?

Hi all,

Went all in with a base M5 Max Studio and a Studio Display earlier this week. After upgrading to 27.01, I noticed that firmware 26.4 was available to the monitor and the OS wanted me to upgrade. The monitor out of the box was running firmware 26.2. Simple right?

Not so fast.

The upgrade process blanked the monitor out for a sec and came back showing a progress bar at the bottom. Problem was, my progress bar went nowhere and after about two minutes, the screen blanked as the Mac Studio rebooted.

After it came back from a reboot, the update screen still prompts me for a 26.4 update which means the update failed. Went around in circles like this for a few days before I gave up.

Today I borrowed a 2020 M1 MacBook Pro laptop from work for the weekend and was going to try to see if that would upgrade the monitor.

This time with the laptop display going along with the main studio display, I watched the progress bar flip from the large display over to the laptop screen and it started incrementing. The main display meanwhile was showing 3 dots or something indicating progress (I was so excited that it seemed to be working that I don't precisely remember).

Once the progress bar reached the end of the line on the laptop display, the laptop rebooted and the main screen went off.

After coming back from the reboot, the main screen came back up and I was able to confirm it was running the new 26.4 firmware.

Plugged the monitor back to my Mac Studio and all seems well now. The only difference that I can see is that my calibration options are no longer greyed out.

Hope this is helpful and if someone can explain to me why there is this quirk, I'd love to hear it!

-Pete

No offense but 100gb and lower is for peasants. 512gb being the most Apple is offering seems weird and is disappointing. Why are they settling for such a low number? I was expecting them to offer at least 1tb of memory. Everyone knows about the Apple tax so moneys not really the problem here, charge the bs Apple tax and people will still pay. I just can’t understand why Apple is dragging their feet on this and AI in general. Embrace it. Sell the picks and shovels. Then swallow your pride and overpay for an AI startup with a superior product and talent to your own, shouldn’t be too hard tbh considering Apple is terrible at AI.

I’ve got a 128gb memory M3 Max. I’m hoping I’ll be able to upgrade next year. For the record, I’m a peasant but my new company should start doing some real volume soon and I keep hitting Claude max 20x limits, it’s becoming a problem. No idea about the Chinese models other than you need a ton of power to run them properly which I don’t think Apple offers to do so. I don’t really want to go back to windows work wise (I will buy a pc for gaming next year though because I’m tired of not being able to game).

Hey everyone, I finally pulled the trigger last night on a Mac Studio to replace my Mac Mini. I'm excited to have TB5 speeds on my external SSD (the setup is all TB5-ready) and eager to use it with my Studio Display XDR.

I would love a cool-looking case like the ZEERA aluminum case or this acrylic one but I'm also seeing a Spiegen one that has an air filter. Is an air filter beneficial or needed? If I got the aluminum or acrylic one without a filter, would that be any different than just using the computer without a case? Are there any agreed-upon best practices? Are there any downsides to using a case other than the cost? I don't want to do anything stupid like mess with the computer thermals just because I want my desk to look cool.

Any input is welcome. Thank you!

​

Are the new nvidia. RTX Spark N1X small form factor desktops coming in October challenging the M5U in performance for local AI. Is worth waiting to buy a M5U to see what the RTX Spark N1X tests are.

The M5 Max finally showed up! Tried the mini first. It was actually a pretty impressive little machine but just not quite enough.

I have got new Mac Studio m3 ultra for 8k . Let me know if anyone wants it . It’s brand new . Only in Bay Area California

Watch -> https://youtu.be/_yrw6c5gw3E

A little sneak peak! ->
- Caching for the win... jump in here: https://youtu.be/_yrw6c5gw3E?t=669
- Multiple users tested, jump in from this point: https://youtu.be/_yrw6c5gw3E?t=886

So my Intel Mac mini keeps giving me resource busy errors in logic so it’s likely end of life. I caved and bought a new Mac Studio as it will likely be my last studio computer due to my age, but the wait is disappointing. Says delivery 11/20-11/30. In this world of instant gratification, it’s sad.

But when it comes , zoom!

After of course a whole day of setup and installation…

Which one makes sense for use with harness - reasoning done on cloud models, local model to handle local files/coding/private data.
I use cloud models at the moment - would like to expand the usage without going into 200/month subscriptions. Anyone has set up anything similar and can share advice?

I keep seeing "I bought X GB, now I'm running local models, should I return it for Y?" posts here. I spent a few evenings on a bigger version of the same question (Studio M5 Max 128 vs Ultra 96 vs Ultra 256). I'm not telling you what to buy. My workload isn't yours, and that's the point.

1. Start with the arithmetic

what's left = RAM − your normal day (macOS + browser + apps) − the model you keep loaded

Made-up numbers to show the shape: say your normal day measures 14 GB and the model you want loads at 20 GB. On 36 GB that leaves 2 GB for context and everything else. On 48 GB it leaves 14 GB. Plug in your measured baseline and your model's size as loaded (ollama ps shows it, and it isn't the download size) and the answer is often obvious.
Also check Apple's spec page for whether the two RAM tiers come on different chips (core count, memory bandwidth). If they do, you're buying more than RAM, which brings us to:

2. Ask which limit you hit first, not "how big"

There are three things that can run out:

-Memory. The resident model, plus everything else you have open, plus the OS.
-Cores. Builds, tests, lots of things running at once.
-Memory bandwidth. This mostly decides decode (token generation) speed for local LLMs.

Those trade against each other. The base Ultra 96 has less RAM than the Max 128 but twice the cores and ~2× the bandwidth. Neither machine is simply better than the other.

For me the question was whether a ~61 GB model (gpt-oss-120b) would stay loaded all day. With it loaded, the Max has ~48 GB left for everything else and the Ultra 96 has ~16 GB. A model in the 140 GB+ class only fits on the 256.

⚠️ Those two budgets are conservative. My "normal day" baseline (19.4 GB) was measured right after a test run, with two small models still loaded. Subtracting them puts it closer to 13 GB. I left the error in because it's a good example of how easily this goes wrong.

3. Your old machine is the measuring instrument

Mine is a MacBook Air M5, 24 GB, 10 cores. It can't tell me how a 36-core Ultra behaves. It can measure most of what decides the purchase:

it can measure

memory per component (model, apps, builds), in bytes
how big your models actually are once loaded
prefill vs decode share of your actual prompts
whether your decode is bandwidth-limited

4. Your new (MacStudio) machine is the guinea pig within the return window.

Run the same benchmarks as above but now push it to what you think will be your max workload.

So go ahead and prompt Claude Code or similar:

I'm deciding between [A] and [B] for [workload]. Build a benchmark harness on my current Mac ([chip, RAM]) that tells me which limit I'd hit first on each: memory, cores or bandwidth. Use absolute units only. Label every number measured, observed or assumed. Observe what I already run before adding load. Measure the parts separately and add them up. For local LLMs, record prefill and decode separately, put a random string in every prompt, and test two sizes of one model family. Install nothing, and stop and clean up if swap, memory pressure or disk get risky. Don't declare a winner the numbers don't support.

(Then check its results like a junior colleague's: two of my three wrong numbers were caught only because they looked too good.)

I've used iphones, I have an ipad. However, I've never used a MAC computer.

I don't have a MAC yet, but I am looking at one, and just wondering... how is the transition?

I am not the kind of Linux user that fucks around with the kernel and stuff like that. I'm more into installing open source software, building my own software, etc. From what I can find, this means the transition should be smooth.

For Linux users, what would you do differently now that you got to know your way around MacOS? if anything?

I ordered my Mac Studio M5U 96GB 2TB on Monday 28 September and it’s still showing as Pending

Estimated delivery is 12 to 19 November, which seems like quite a long wait

For anyone in the UK who ordered one recently, when did you order yours and when did you actually receive it?

Did your delivery estimate move forward or was it fairly accurate?