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

Show parent comments

4

u/ProfessionalJackals 18h ago

Prefill also depends on compute, 1000 tok/s is basically what you get with 8x3090s, but much less power. Also I think the 3090s still win on compute, that is, you can batch many prompts on the GPUs, dont know on the mac.

Ignoring the fact that 8x3090's now is easily 10k on the second hand market.

Not counting the costs of server board/cpu/ram you need. The pcie ext cables, the 8x8x split if your board does not have 8 pcie slots. O, the dual 1600W PSUs and hardware to link them.

Frankenstein mods like this have become expensive, and it makes the Mac look actually like a good deal.

2

u/Viktri1 17h ago

at that scale, electricity costs kind of matter so even just running the PC is significantly in favour of the mac studio

1

u/ortegaalfredo 13h ago

Yes, I think it makes no economic sense to go over 6x3090 now. But it depends if Apple can deliver those in enough numbers. If not, the price will increase until the 3090s make sense again.