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if you do want to do local LLM stuff, mac studio is significantly better than most linux dev boxes.

As 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.

Better 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.

For specifically unified memory reasons, Apple machines are much, much better at running local LLMs.

A lot more upgradable too. Those empty DRAM slots can get populated one day!

The unified memory is the big appeal of a beefy Mac Studio