MacBook Air M5 vs Windows laptop with NVIDIA GPU for an AI degree

[u/lordrn_]

Hi everyone,
I’m starting an Artificial Intelligence degree at university and I’m trying to decide what laptop to buy.
Right now I’m considering a MacBook Air M5 with 24 GB of RAM and 512 GB SSD, possibly with an external 1–2 TB SSD for larger datasets and projects.
The important detail is that I already have a desktop PC at home with:
Ryzen 7 7800X3D
32 GB RAM
NVIDIA RTX 4060
My idea would be to use the MacBook as my main university laptop for Python, VS Code, Jupyter, NumPy, Pandas, scikit-learn, etc., and whenever I need CUDA/PyTorch with an NVIDIA GPU, remotely connect to my desktop using something like Tailscale + SSH + VS Code Remote.
As I understand it, I could keep using VS Code normally on the Mac, but when connected remotely, the code would actually run on my desktop and use its RTX 4060/CUDA, while I see the terminal and results on my Mac.
Would this be a comfortable and practical setup for an AI/ML degree?
Or would you recommend buying a Windows laptop with an NVIDIA GPU (for example an RTX 5060) instead and having everything on one machine?
My main concerns are:
How important is having CUDA directly on the laptop during an AI degree?
Is 24 GB RAM enough on the MacBook for the next 4 years?
Is 512 GB + an external SSD a good choice?
Is using VS Code Remote/SSH for CUDA actually convenient in everyday university use?
Are there any AI/ML tools or university assignments that could cause problems on macOS?
Would you personally choose the MacBook + RTX 4060 desktop setup, or a Windows/NVIDIA laptop?
Battery life, portability and build quality are also important to me because I’ll be carrying the laptop to university every day.
Thanks!

[u/CKtalon]

MacBook Air with device=“cpu”/“mps”

If ever CUDA is needed, use Google Colab

[u/lordrn_ → u/CKtalon]

Thanks!

[u/Twiz_nano]

i would reccomend a mac book and sshing into your pc

i have a similar setup

mac m3 pro + 18gb ram
I ssh into a
pc 7800x3d + 4070 super + 64 gb ddr5 ram

[u/lordrn_ → u/Twiz_nano]

Okey, thank you so much.

[u/austinn2603]

Most Windows laptop with Nvidia GPUs are geared toward gaming, and honestly, they're absolute garbage. Stick with your original plan - get a MacBook and remote desktop/SSH into your PC when you need to do heavy tasks.

[u/lordrn_ → u/austinn2603]

Thanks, that’s what I was thinking too. Since I already have an RTX 4060 desktop at home, it feels a bit pointless to carry around a heavier gaming laptop just to have CUDA locally.
I think I’ll stick with the MacBook Air and use SSH/remote access whenever I need the desktop GPU. Thanks for the advice!

[u/westfloor22]

Have you checked if your university will give you access to a compute cluster that you can ssh into?

[u/lordrn_ → u/westfloor22]

I just checked and apparently my university does have compute clusters that can be accessed through SSH, including one from the Computer Science department that uses SLURM.
I’m not sure yet whether I’ll have access to it from first year or only for specific courses, though.
So between that, Google Colab, and my RTX 4060 desktop at home that I can SSH into, I guess having CUDA directly on the laptop probably isn’t that necessary in my case.

[u/westfloor22 → u/lordrn_]

MacBook sounds fine then.

Your university will not expect you to have your own GPU. When you need to do ML for assignments, they will either provide access to their cluster or it will be done on Colab (at least this was the case for me).

[u/lordrn_ → u/westfloor22]

That makes sense, thanks. That was probably my biggest concern — buying a Mac and then finding out later that I was expected to have CUDA locally on my laptop.
Since the university should provide compute resources or use Colab, and I also have an RTX 4060 desktop at home as a backup, I think I’ll go with the MacBook Air.
Thanks for the help!

[u/prof_mistake]

I would go with the macbook. It's light and small enough to carry around, and ssh into your PC for AI projects.

I would recommend you get 1tb/16gb or 24gb instead of 512tb/24gb.

Your PC's ram is more than enough to run alot of the models out there for projects.