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Comment by kingkongjaffa

19 days ago

I went looking for the latest line of apple computers after reading this thread and I noticed they force you into the higher CPU's in order to get the higher amounts of unified memory.

So not only are they content charging +$400 or +$600 for RAM which in itself ludicrously overpriced, they force you to upgrade +$1000-2000 on the top CPU's.

Its impossible to spec a macbook pro or a mac mini with a base CPU and a decent amount of RAM. Total scam since they know people want the RAM to use with local LLMs.

This was not always the case - When I specced out my macbook pro M1 16gb it was entirely possible to get 32 and 64gb without any tie-in to CPU upgrades.

I was ready to drop a few grand on a new macbook pro M5 or M4 pro with a decent amount of RAM but it's currently set up to be an insane price gouge.

To get 32GB of RAM it's an M5 chip price $1999.

To get 64GB of RAM you are forced to to grab the M4 max CPU, and it's $3,899 on apple right now. What a scam.

They're just limiting the range of SKUs they have to manufacture. For all we know, the base M-series die might not even support that larger amount of in-package memory to begin with.