Bought it without looking too closely to make sure I got in before the rush (comes Nov 25-Dec 3 before my M5 Ultra 256GB which is supposedly shipping end of January).
After taking a look the $11.5k premium over the 256GB might not be worth it. Gonna have to mull over the decision and possibly buy two 256GB machines instead (which might be the smarter option).
This is crazy to me as well: half a terabyte (!) of RAM?! How is that even possible lol (I know this is possible, but seems totally overkill, even though I know LLMs eat RAM for breakfast)
512gb being more expensive than just two 256g is a little strange. You mean you can get the same exact total cluster ram but double the compute/storage nodes and save $700?
This is why people like to pick up the new Studios from the Apple Store in person - for that short ride back home their car is worth four times what it was on the way there.
I've had my eye on the normal Mac Studio M5 Ultra (normal plebeian 96GB RAM) and the release date there keeps slipping, now into January. I'm surprised Apple is pushing the backlog even more.
I have one. It can run lots of smaller models really well. I’ve been loving Gemma4 especially. My needs more more large scale information extraction and not trying to replace Claude code locally though.
If anything the interesting models that can run in about 64gb of memory are increasing because most people can’t access more memory than that. I’m especially excited for clef and cleric as they continue to improve. Yeah, you don’t get 1mil token context length, but even frontier models can lose focus at that level
I've been holding off because I will need to do experimentation with local models at some point...but not yet and won't be for a bit but I am afraid prices will rise given component cost trajectories.
I've been tempted to just get the M5 Max instead and just innovate with smaller models myself.
Top spec build is $29,799 + tx. While local AI is certainly an enticing prospect I can’t really imagine myself ever seeing a return on that investment.
Further they’ve already begun hyping the M7 Ultra and even if that got delayed until 2028, this machine only being SOTA for 1.5yrs is a hilariously short window in which to maximize your investment.
I'd be willing to spend that much if it unlocked the ability to run top-of-the-line open weight models at their best quantization at a decent enough speed for personal agentic use. We're clearly not there yet, and I just can't imagine dropping the price of a brand new car on something that will only get me heavily quantized versions of the smaller models.
Enthusiasts generally don't see a "return on investment" on their luxury cars or their boats either, but they enjoy what they're able to do with them and aren't exactly embarassed about the class signaling of being a high spender.
Add to that the smattering people with genuinely justifiable use cases, and you have more than enough demand for a limit-pushing, highest-margin model of your product platform.
The 512 GB seems too expensive. You can buy multiples of the cheaper one. Like 4 of the 128 GB max, or 2 of the 256 GB ultras for less. (And end up with more total bandwidth and storage and compute).
Unless there is some sort of restriction on number per customer.
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[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 17.7 ms ] threadAfter taking a look the $11.5k premium over the 256GB might not be worth it. Gonna have to mull over the decision and possibly buy two 256GB machines instead (which might be the smarter option).
...Right?
* 256GB - $10,799
* 512GB - $22,299
(M5 Ultra with just 1TB of storage)
Now the equivalent M5 Ultra (36-core CPU / 80-core GPU with 512GB of RAM) is priced at $22,299.
If anything the interesting models that can run in about 64gb of memory are increasing because most people can’t access more memory than that. I’m especially excited for clef and cleric as they continue to improve. Yeah, you don’t get 1mil token context length, but even frontier models can lose focus at that level
I've been tempted to just get the M5 Max instead and just innovate with smaller models myself.
Further they’ve already begun hyping the M7 Ultra and even if that got delayed until 2028, this machine only being SOTA for 1.5yrs is a hilariously short window in which to maximize your investment.
Add to that the smattering people with genuinely justifiable use cases, and you have more than enough demand for a limit-pushing, highest-margin model of your product platform.
I hate to break it to you but the same thing has happened with cars. Many in-demand performance cars like the GT3 RS have been appreciating.
prices shoot by just choosing the 128gb option and even worse the 512gb option.
1. Will the RAM shortage turn into a RAM glut & crash in the next year?
2. Even if that happens, will Apple just keep prices sky high anyway?
The 512 GB seems too expensive. You can buy multiples of the cheaper one. Like 4 of the 128 GB max, or 2 of the 256 GB ultras for less. (And end up with more total bandwidth and storage and compute).
Unless there is some sort of restriction on number per customer.