Is it weird to anyone else that the M5 keeps the same limitations of the M4, and tops out at 128 GB of RAM?

If one wants to serve large-ish LLMs locally, an M3 Mac Studio w/ 512 GB/RAM is still a super compelling option, and I was hoping that the M5's would bump us up to 1TB of unified memory.

Don't get me wrong -- seeing them use LMStudio as the benchmark for measuring local LLM inference is super awesome for the local / open-source LLM community, but seeing this have the same 128GB cap as the M4 is... disappointing?

M3 Studio is still the best option if one wants 512GB.

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browningstreet 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Apple hasn't suddenly stopped being Apple. They strongly differentiate the boundaries of their product lines and have never let use case leakage spread across their product lines.

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HanClinto 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Yes, but the M3 was used in the Mac Studio as well as the Macbook Air, wasn't it?

The 128gb limitation feels like it's portrayed as a limitation of the M5 chip itself -- not just of the Macbook Air product line.

	▲	lm28469 an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Only the m3 ultra supported more than 128gb, I don't think they used them on anything other than the studio.

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cco 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I tremble to think at the cost of 1TB of ram in an apple laptop.

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Tepix an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I'm pretty sure that the market for notebooks with more than 128GB memory at Apples prices is rather small.

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NineStarPoint 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It was the M3 Ultra that had that much RAM capacity, not the Pro or the Max.

It is disappointing they didn't up it to at least 256GB on the laptops, but we'll have to wait for the next iteration of the studio to see if they'll give us 1TB unified memory.

	▲	HanClinto 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Oh nice. Super good clarification, I appreciate the correction -- thank you! Here's holding out hope that we'll still be able to see an M5 Ultra then! :)