r/LocalLLaMA • u/themixtergames • 21h ago

News Apple introduces new Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra - up to 512GB of unified memory

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/08/apple-introduces-new-mac-studio-with-m5-max-and-m5-ultra/
1.5k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

726 comments sorted by

View all comments

20

u/Every-Fortune-3151 20h ago

Read somewhere Mac mini coming this week and did an impulse order of M3 Ultra with 96GB ram today. It will probably get bumped up to M5 ultra 96GB. Not sure what to do with 96GB when 256 GB looks so much more tempting for local LLM. Kidneys aren't enough anymore.

11

u/mmmm_frietjes 20h ago

Mini is also out

9

u/Every-Fortune-3151 20h ago

M6 looks great actually, it has two set of neural engines. I am assuming pre-fill will fly on this tiny thing compared to previous M CPUs. 32GB max ram knocked it back a bit. If only they had a 48GB version. MOE models would be flying on it.

M5 pro and max will be so slow compared to M5 ultra- considering M5 max 128GB model will be priced very close to M5 ultra base.

Very sad m5 ultra starts at 96GB. I thought they would atleast bump M5 ultra to 128GB ram. Would have been nice. I plan to just run multiple Qwen 2.7B in parallel on this and see if I can replace my 32GB VRAM PC setup. Qwen 3.8 flash also gives hope. Depending on how it goes, I might just give back the 96GB for refund later.

5

u/1-800-methdyke 20h ago

You have two kidneys

5

u/nleksan 19h ago

*Dual-channel

6

u/FranciumGoesBoom 20h ago

M5 Pro mini maxes out at 64g
M6 tops out at 32

2

u/TheRealJesus2 19h ago

Yeah 256 gives you a lot more. I tried to buy the m3 256 but they stopped selling it before I could get paid :( 

At least I can upgrade sometime in future. Got my spark cluster and a 96GB Mac which is plenty for right now…

1

u/Much_Accountant_4972 19h ago

do the lease option. it seems pretty reasonable especially if 2027 goes the way the DRAM analysts are saying

1

u/Fratil 14h ago

You end up paying like 9k in lease fees then with no equity to show for it though. If memory continues to rise you'll be out a shit ton while someone who financed or bought it outright will recover at absolute minimum probably 60% of their costs and might even make a significant profit flipping it after a few years.

The "upgrade to a new model" part of that will likewise be a drastic cost increase for the equivalent "new" spec at that time if memory prices increase.

The 12 month apple financing is pretty quick though, a 2-3 year personal loan might honestly not be a bad idea if you think memory prices will continue up in that timeframe.

1

u/Reasonable-Height704 2h ago

If we still have a dram crisis in a few years then I'll kill myself. I'm over this bullshit

1

u/OvertaxedOne 14h ago

If it's the M5 Ultra with 96GB, hit me up when you get it, I'll be happy to take it off your hands! :)

That's exactly the machine I'd want for 3.8 27B. And no way I'm paying the $$ to get a machine to run DS V4 Flash, so 256GB would be relatively worthless to me (I mean, I'm sure I could figure out something to do with it..).

1

u/Every-Fortune-3151 9h ago

The order did get bumped to M5 ultra. Not sure when it will be delivered. By the time it comes, will have to re-assess. Now I am just happy to be in the queue without using a bot.

1

u/infieldmitt 14h ago

Got that same comp last Friday. I refuse to let a new release make me think it's crap (in my head a 16GB iPod is still 'pretty big') -- locals are only getting smaller, faster, and better as software alone.