Comment by vessenes
2 months ago
The article says base M7 memory bandwidth is targeted at 240GB/s.
M1 had 70 GB/s, M1 Pro: 200, M1 Max 400, M1 Ultra 800.
Modern RTX 6000: ~1,600 or so.
If we get a 1,200-1,500 GB/s bandwidth M7 variant in late 2027 with 512GB of RAM, that will be a very interesting chip. Tracking LLM size and performance improvements, I can imagine that being a sort of inflection point for local inference. I wonder what the power budget would be in desktop format.
A hypothetical M7 Ultra with LPDDR6 14.4Gbps memory would be 1.85 Tb/s.
You're look at about 100 tokens/s for a 1T MoE 37B active 4bit model.
It'd probably cost $30k or more I'm guessing if memory prices do not come down. Even at $30k, it could still be a relative bargain since an RTX Pro 6000 Blackwell 96GB card costs $12k today. The M3 Ultra with 512GB was around $8k before Apple discontinued it. I expect an M7 Ultra to have 768GB or 1024GB.
Apple Silicon Macs were on their way to becoming cheap local LLM machines relative to professional GPUs before this memory crisis. It may still emerge as such in a few years.
Here's some interesting math: At 512GB, an Ultra chip could make 42 pro iPhones. Assume a 55% profit margins, and $1200 ASP, you're looking at $28,160 in profit from making iPhones instead. No wonder Apple discontinued the M3 Ultra 512GB. If they only have a limited supply of RAM for all their products, it makes no sense to produce an $8000 M3 Ultra 512GB when you can produce 42 pro iPhones. You can only configure an M3 Ultra up to 96GB today as of June 2026.
Apple would have to raise the price of a 512GB Ultra Mac to around $50k to match iPhone profits.
> Assume a 55% profit margins, and $1200 ASP, you're looking at $28,160 in profit from making iPhones instead. No wonder Apple discontinued the M3 Ultra 512GB.
How would that work? They purchase 512GB from Samsung and then it doesn't matter if that's like 128x 4GB or 4x 128GB?
It's likely the capacity they have reserved can be in different combinations.
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Where did you get 55% from? iPhone and Mac gross margins behave been 40% or so for years IIRC.
Quick internet search. Whether it’s 40% or 55%, the main points stay.
An ‘ypothetical!
In what neck of the woods? English pronunciation never gets boring.
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> A hypothetical M7 Ultra with LPDDR6
That’s indeed very hypothetical considering that Apple silicon uses on-package HBM.
Apple only uses LPDDR.
> The M3 Ultra with 512GB was around $8k before Apple discontinued it
The base model was $9k, that much RAM got you into $14k range.
512GB was around $9.5k. The $14k would be if you upgraded to 16TB SSD.
https://youtu.be/jSYobH9kr1E?si=hc1xUQ37_SEbkDkj&t=1242
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I’d assume by next year the open weights models will be outlawed the way things are going nowadays :/
Edit: for those of you downvoting I don’t celebrate this prospect. I’m merely realistic about where things are going given the rapid vibe shift from the administration on AI since the start of June.
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M5 is 153GB/s, M5 Pro 307GB/s, M5 Max 614GB/s.
The article didn't state the M5 Ultra won't be released. It will probably provide 1228GB/s of memory bandwidth this year.
Problem is affording the ram…
Apple is finally going to realize Jobs vision where sand comes into the factory, is turned into RAM and CPU chips, then installed in a Mac or iPhone then shipped to a customer.
Isnt the proper kind of sand in short supply aswell?
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As some like to call it, 'the last moat'.
Well yes. But similar to the Apple TSMC relationship, could Apple step in with large orders to established RAM makers such that the RAM makers can invest with stability?
M series chips are system-on-chip with RAM on the same wafer with CPU and GPU, so it impossible to outsource only part of the chip
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192gb or 256gb of RAM would be enough ! We could run real time large MoE models, REAPed for our usage (e.g. english agentic coding), dynamic quant 2-4bits
At this point and given the cost of memory, it will probably make sense to invest in faster SSD to allow for good performance with less memory
late 2027 is a very long time.
Well yeah but NVidia just released a contender to their silicon and the M6 is probably already set in stone. Best to reshift resources to a great M7 than having a mediocre M6 and M7.
(This is assuming Apple will deliver, but this area is one of the biggest ones they have in AI, and they need the developer ecosystem to exist and survive)
That would cost as much as a new car.
Don't worry, they'll just make cars more expensive
Come to think of it, modern cars have a lot of electronics such as touchscreens, cameras, and sensors. It wouldn’t surprise me if new car prices are not immune to what’s happening with RAM and storage prices.
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Maxed out 2019 Mac Pro was $50k+. The wheels on that thing were $400. This is a bargain compared to that.