I have a fairly maxed out M2 Ultra (24 cores, 192GB RAM), and still cannot get this machine to choke on anything.

I have not once felt the need to upgrade in years, and that’s with doing pretty demanding 3D and LLM work.

▲ prodigycorp 9 hours ago | parent | next [-]

If there’s anything this past three years has taught me, it’s that modern cpus can performantly do every task except for streaming text over the internet.

	▲	pmdr 3 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I had to upgrade the CPU in a 10-year old machine (from i5 to i7) to have decently -working javascript on websites. Every other piece of software worked fine, though.
	▲	hobofan 7 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I'm pretty sure that's just LLMs tendency to replicate bad React patterns.

▲ _jab 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I've found current-generation Macs so capable that I've switched to using a Macbook Air. Would strongly recommend - it's still a powerful machine and it's significantly lighter and cheaper.

▲ Aurornis 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I have a powerful older Mac that doesn’t really “choke” on anything, but I could always use more speed.

The high memory Macs have been great for being able to run LLMs, but the prompt processing has always been on the slow side. The new AI acceleration in these should help with that.

There are also workloads like compiling code where I’ll take all the extra speed I can get. Every little bit of reduced cycle time helps me finish earlier in the day.

And then there’s gaming. I don’t game much, but the M1 and M2 era Apple Silicon feels sluggish relative to what I have on the nVidia side.

▲ throwaway911282 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

my m4max runs fan at high speed! just have few electron apps open..

▲ aurareturn 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

   and that’s with doing pretty demanding 3D and LLM work.

It definitely chokes with larger models that can fit the 192GB of RAM. Prompt processing is a big bottleneck before M5.

	▲	magicalist 9 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> It definitely chokes with larger models that can fit the 192GB of RAM M5 Max maxes out at 128GB, so that will have to wait for the eventual M5 Ultra anyways.

▲ Sharlin 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

AI video generation can fairly easily choke anything that's not NVIDIA's flagship model. Even the latest local image gen models are so large that they can be frustratingly slow with non-optimal hardware even if they fit in the VRAM. IIRC when I had an M2, it was about 4x slower at running the venerable Stable Diffusion (and SDXL) than my meager RTX 3060.

	▲	testfrequency 9 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I do not do anything with AI Video, but I imagine running this locally would be a hog on a Mac - especially if not optimised for Metal.

▲ replwoacause 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Sounds pretty beefy. What kind of local LLM is that thing capable of running? Does it open up real alternatives to cloud providers like OpenAI and Claude, or are the local models this hardware is capable of running still pretty far behind?

▲ mikert89 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yeah I have an M1 Max, and I really want to upgrade, but there’s no reason to.

▲ butILoveLife 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[flagged]

	▲	satvikpendem 8 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Just because you don't usually use local models doesn't mean others don't, especially with their 192 GB of RAM.

▲ carlosjobim 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

You might have confused Hacker News with your e-mail inbox again. This is an Apple press release, directed to everybody in the world who might be interested in a new computer or their first computer.

▲

testfrequency 9 hours ago | parent [-]

What’s with the attitude? My machine is aging like a fine wine, I’m acknowledging how resilient their custom silicon is despite the world demanding more and more compute.

▲

carlosjobim 9 hours ago | parent [-]

It was a joke, should have put a smiley face. But every thread on a new Apple product here on HN have the same "why should I upgrade" comment, forgetting that there are people who might have very old devices they want to upgrade, or they might want to switch from Windows/Android to Apple.

Even if a new device is a small upgrade from last year's model, it can be a giant upgrade for other people.

	▲	ffreire 7 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Are you one of the folks thinking of upgrading? If so, from what generation? What makes you excited? Isn't this a more interesting way to have the conversation?
	▲	testfrequency 9 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Got it. I guess it feels unfair to gaslight people who are celebrating not needing upgrades, anecdotally sharing their experiences - because some people just need a new computer for xyz reason in time.