Submitted 1 year ago by simple@lemm.ee to technology@lemmy.world
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/03/apple-reveals-m3-ultra-taking-apple-silicon-to-a-new-extreme/
512gb of unified memory is insane. The price will be outrageous but for AI enthusiasts it will probably be worth it.
The storage prices are insane. It’s over 9 thousand to get the 512GB model, and it still only has 1TB of probably non removable internal storage.
2TB is +$400 4TB is +$1000 8TB is +$2200 16TB + $4600
They’re saying 8TB is worth more than the entire base model Mac Studio at 2k.
For those prices I expect a RAID 5 or 6 system built in, god knows they have the processor for it.
Weird that my mind just read that as MKUltra.
Maybe appropriate for AI.
Isn’t unified memory terrible for AI tho? I kind of doubt it even has bandwidth of a 5 years old vram.
This type of thing is mostly used for inference with extremely large models, where a single GPU will have far too little VRAM to even load a model into memory. I doubt people are expecting this to perform particularly fast, they just want to get a model to run at all.
While DDR7 DRAM is obviously better, the massive amount of memory can be a massive advantage for some models.
Ultra brings memories, but Sun was better than Apple.
Though having said that, Sun was kinda greedy too and their hardware was about the same degree of proprietary as Apple’s.
Aesthetically Sun was amazing, though, and Apple is tasteless, aimed at plebes (technically Julius Caesar was from a plebe noble family, but nobody thinks in such nuance or that plebe noble family is a thing).
can be configured up to 512GB, or over half a terabyte.
Are you ok mate?
They’re not wrong. 1000 GB is a terabyte, so 512 GB is over half a terabyte.
It’s exactly half a tebibyte though.
512 GiB is half a tebibyte. 512 GB is just under 477 GiB.
That’s a retcon of hardware producers using measurement units confusion to advertise less as more.
It’s nice to have consistent units naming, but when the industry has existed for a long enough time with the old ones, seems intentional harm for profit.
Is memory that small, connected externally, or does that SoC just end up in a large package, whith that much RAM on it?
It’s just external and soldered to the motherboard on Macs, no?
No, the ram is integrated into the CPU.
That extreme’s name? Albert Einstein.
taking Apple prices to a new extreme
Well this news means there will be cheaper second hand machines on the market.
Unfortunately that market is already flooded with functionally-useless 8GB machines.
Yes, that’s how computers parts work. Like all other depreciating assets.
my college buddy and startup cofounder had a pathetically slow old laptop. he asks me the other day, “should i buy an ipad pro?” i was dumbfounded. bro you don’t even have a proper computer. we went around a bunch and he kept trying to get really bad ones like a base model mac mini. finally i persuaded him to get a 16" M1 Pro for a grand (about 700 after his trade in) and he couldn’t be happier.
I’m still using my M1 MBP like 4 years later. Don’t even care to upgrade! these things are great value
M2 user here. It is wonderful. You cannot get it to even heat up.
Honestly, the base level M1 mini is still one hell of a computer. I’m typing this on one right now, complete with only 8gb RAM, and it hasn’t yet felt in any way underpowered.
Encoded some flac files to m4a with XLD this morning. 16 files totalling 450mb; it took 10 seconds to complete. With my work flows I can’t imagine needing much more power than that.
I thought a few days ago that my “new” laptop (M2 Pro MBP) is now almost 2 years old. The damn thing still feels new.
I really dislike Apple but the Apple Silicon processors are so worth it to me. The performance-battery life combination is ridiculously good.
PlutoniumAcid@lemmy.world 1 year ago
My mind broke, reading this. From way back when you could count the transistors by pointing at them with your finger, to hundreds of billions on a postage stamp. How??