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Don't need anything too large. Call real inference engines on nvidia chips I went from 128gb MacBook is what I need to max maybe 24/32 to run what I need for non LLM inference and just call llms elsewhere. Freemium, paid online, local AI machines (at home or office) etc
But I am an exception since I still have online subs and I got a lot of local GPUs to use. lol MacBook are simply too slow (m5 max 40 GPUs) anyway)
Last edited by Elon69 October 12, 2026 at 11:38 AM.
i got the M4 PRO chip equivalent from Costco with 2 years warranty for $1699 last year! Apple has raised their prices like crazy where now $2600 is supposed to be a deal!? It sucks out there! Then now they have a $2,,000 phone. UP next Macbook Ultra starting price $5,000 and iPhone Ultra Next year for $3,000. They will just keep raising their prices - they will suck you dry!
i got the M4 PRO chip equivalent from Costco with 2 years warranty for $1699 last year! Apple has raised their prices like crazy where now $2600 is supposed to be a deal!? It sucks out there! Then now they have a $2,,000 phone. UP next Macbook Ultra starting price $5,000 and iPhone Ultra Next year for $3,000. They will just keep raising their prices - they will suck you dry!
Inflation finally hit electronics, which was the one category they used for 20 years to hide the real inflation on everything else.
I agree that $2500 is way too much for the "base" workstation laptop when they were $1600 just 3-4 years ago. And it's not just the Apple premium, cause even the good Thinkpads and Dell Precision's have skyrocketed in cost. It's depressing.
Don't need anything too large. Call real inference engines on nvidia chips I went from 128gb MacBook is what I need to max maybe 24/32 to run what I need for non LLM inference and just call llms elsewhere. Freemium, paid online, local AI machines (at home or office) etc
But I am an exception since I still have online subs and I got a lot of local GPUs to use. lol MacBook are simply too slow (m5 max 40 GPUs) anyway)
The shift is towards local servers & cloud for run work for serious workloads.
The 16gb to 24gb macbook is fine for AI routing. Even something as old m1 pro is fine. The Studio ultra 256gb are starting dasiy chain
Quote from Semaphor74 [IMG]https://api-web.slickdeals.net/images/misc/backlink.gif[/IMG] : It is not necessary for an average person.Even 16 Gb of Ram is enough for most use cases. Everyone has different needs. No, 16 gb is not enough if your mac is constantly writing to swap. Even opening 10 tabs and a few docs will put you at max. Unless you are only using it for watching videos and check email, 16gb is not enough. And if all you do is check email and watch videos, you don't need a Mac, get a tablet and call it a day.
I run davinci resolve on a 16gb m4 MacBook air and it does just fine. I run 3d modeling software on the same machine. My mac isn't constantly swapping AND even if it were, the bus speed from the proc to SSD is quite fast.
Nothing below 32gb if you want to run AI for dev and serious learning. That's why most models on discount are 16/24gb.
If you are serious about ai dev, you would just be using Claude code anyway. Local LLM is a waste of time. 24gb is more than enough for a few docker containers and run a qwen 9b for testing.
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Nothing below 32gb if you want to run AI for dev and serious learning. That's why most models on discount are 16/24gb.
Serious learning? Most basic LLMs can easily run on even 16GB RAM. There are teenagers running AI models on android phones from 2023. For learning you DONOT needs an expensive laptop.
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https://www.costco.com/p/-/macboo...?langI
And even 36GB barely fits Qwen3-32B at 8bit so there isn't even a useful jump from 24 to 32 that justifies thousands
But I am an exception since I still have online subs and I got a lot of local GPUs to use. lol MacBook are simply too slow (m5 max 40 GPUs) anyway)
from Semaphor74
[IMG]https://api-web.slickdeals.net/images/misc/backlink.gif[/IMG]
:
It is not necessary for an average person.Even 16 Gb of Ram is enough for most use cases. Everyone has different needs.
No, 16 gb is not enough if your mac is constantly writing to swap. Even opening 10 tabs and a few docs will put you at max.
Unless you are only using it for watching videos and check email, 16gb is not enough.
And if all you do is check email and watch videos, you don't need a Mac, get a tablet and call it a day.
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https://www.amazon.com/Apple-MacB...=8-10&th=1
I agree that $2500 is way too much for the "base" workstation laptop when they were $1600 just 3-4 years ago. And it's not just the Apple premium, cause even the good Thinkpads and Dell Precision's have skyrocketed in cost. It's depressing.
But I am an exception since I still have online subs and I got a lot of local GPUs to use. lol MacBook are simply too slow (m5 max 40 GPUs) anyway)
The 16gb to 24gb macbook is fine for AI routing. Even something as old m1 pro is fine. The Studio ultra 256gb are starting dasiy chain
Not everyone wants to run their own local AI.
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