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Why not a non-mac cheaper desktop/workstation and a Mac laptop for use? E.g. what most major tech companies have - a laptop that is for VSCode via ssh/web brow
by jmalicki 1mo ago
Why not a non-mac cheaper desktop/workstation and a Mac laptop for use?
E.g. what most major tech companies have - a laptop that is for VSCode via ssh/web browsing, and a beefy Linux dev box you ssh into for everything else?
It's way cheaper, and what I use at home too - a lot cheaper than a Mac studio for everything, especially with RAM and storage.
- dannyw 1mo agoA lot more upgradable too. Those empty DRAM slots can get populated one day!
- sylens 1mo agoThe unified memory is the big appeal of a beefy Mac Studio
- mswphd 1mo agoif you do want to do local LLM stuff, mac studio is significantly better than most linux dev boxes.
- hedora 1mo agoAs of a year ago, the strix halo AMD (system on chip, unified ram) was within single digit percentages of the mac, but it’s a linux box, so much better for most dev and as an llm server. I know AMD has announced the replacement, and it will be faster, but I’m not sure when it’ll ship. Also, you can cluster strix halo if you need more than 128GB of ram.
- dannyw 1mo agoBetter than a DGX Spark running Linux? Absolutely not (I own both). Real-world matmul is about 4x higher on a DGX Spark than a M3 Ultra.
- jfb 1mo agoFor specifically unified memory reasons, Apple machines are much, much better at running local LLMs.