And boy have the prices increased!
Yikes! Those prices. Want 128GB of ram in your M5 Max Mac Studio instead of the base model’s 48GB? That will be an additional $2,000 please. That’s 1.5 times the trade-in value of my current 2023 M2 Max Mac Studio. (It’s got 64GB of ram and a 4TB hard drive; Apple is low-balling me.)
Want an M5 Ultra Mac Studio with a 36 core CPU / 80 core GPU, 256GB ram, and a 16TB SSD hard drive? That will be $18,300. Or, you could bestow 26 MacBook Neos on the middle school classroom of your choosing.
And don’t forget $1500 for a baseline monitor from apple. Of course you could get a similar spec with windows for less than half that price. 
The Mac Studio I was considering as a potential next machine comes in at $16,500 CAD (education pricing) before taxes.
A new 2027 Toyota Corolla is ~$27,000.
We live in interesting times!
Yes, but you’d have to use Windows. Been there; done that, as they say.
Believe it or not- that is surprisingly competitive compared with buying a Linux GPU box with comparable specs. [The one big benefit of a Linux box however is future upgradability.]
True, but if I’m saving $8k then it’s a no brainer for me as practicality rules over preference for me.
What % of value will the Mac Pro vs. the Toyota retain in 1 years? In 3 years?
How much money can you earn with each one?
I currently have a baseline M2 Max Studio with 512GB SSD and 32GB RAM, 12 Core Whatsit and 30 Core Thingy. It cost me £2,399 in October 2023. It is complete overkill for my needs, though of course, that reduces over time…
The equivalent baseline M5 Max Studio (512GB SSD and 36GB RAM, 18 Core Ws and 32 Core Ts) is ÂŁ2,499.
After inflation and tariffs and life in general, £100 increase over three years for an extra 3 Ms, 4GB, 6 whatsits and 2 thingies seems rather reasonable to me… I may have to restore my overkill buffer.
Cheaper does not equal more practical. I prefer OSX/Apple Silicon to Windows/Intel for a reason.
The only thing I can’t do with my M2 Mac Studio is run a gigantic local LLM, which I’d only do as a hobbyist, and I have other expensive hobbies I need to pursue. 
I don’t have any use for (or trust in) AI so the LM Studio I installed just for a play lies unregretted and unused.
The only change I’d make, if I were to succumb to the M5 Max, is that 512GB isn’t quite enough internal storage (though I have 4TB SSD and a couple of 10TB HDDs hanging off the back) and I wish I’d got at least the 1TB – so add £300 to that £2,499…
Indeed these are the questions.
On that note: anyone making any bets on when RAMaggedon will end? If somehow supply and demand balance next year, could these Mac prices drop substantially? Or are we locked in at these higher prices forever regardless?
Can I get your education pricing? 
A $50 discount on an insanely expensive computer is a good deal.
I assume that after OpenAI slowly dies off, the underlying problem will go away. Will Apple lower their prices? Who knows. That’s why I will need to borrow your education pricing.
It might very well be the case or not, but “next year” seems too optimistic. Hyperscalers are still spending CAPEX like crazy, not to mention the frontier labs and a plethora of startups.
Software used to be the expensive thing!
It’s the RAM. My M4 Max Studio (128GB, 1TB) was 4654€ with taxes. The M5 Max with same RAM and disk is now 6219€ (!!!).
It seems I got lucky with the future proofing lottery this time.
According to reports the big three computer memory suppliers have already sold their entire production capacity for 2027. And they are locking their customers into long-term supply agreements lasting as long as five years.
I’d say the smart money is betting on . . . 2030?
Have Apple ever lowered its prices on new equipment? It will knock off $100 or so on last years iPhones, but the price of the trashcan Mac Pro never dropped in the six years it was for sale. My guess is the price of additional ram might drop back to Apple’s normal exorbitant markup at some point.
But I bet most businesses will continue to use cloud based AI from Microsoft or Google, etc. and avoid having to purchase more powerful client hardware. That’s what I plan to do.