Comment by bensyverson
3 days ago
Yes, I'm very glad they're doing this, but as of 2026, it's a bit academic. Pricing for the 512GB Mac Studio hasn't even been announced yet, but the 256GB version starts at $9499. So when you start talking about four of those puppies, it's substantial.
Someone else will do the math on how many years it would take to spend $40k on Muse Spark Open via OpenRouter.
But there are definitely people out there that will need to run these models locally (contractual or legal requirements). By validating a Mac Studio as an option for running local models, it might be the more appealing option.
For most of us though, you're right -- the OpenRouter option is far more cost effective.
It seems Apple figured they could sell more Mac Studios on the basis of frontier local AI models, profit to be made while users haven't figured out the math yet.
Don't get me wrong; in the long term I see the price of local inference falling as their chips continue to get 15-20% faster every year, and meanwhile the "intelligence per billion parameter" chart is rising. There will be a magic point where they cross, and "good enough" reaches your phone. That's when Apple starts to drink Nvidia's milkshake.
Apple and NVIDIA prices are not going to fall.
Their competitors will. Anyone locked into these two ecosystems are willingly going along with it.
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Apple’s problem is memory the biggest question is whether or not they will design and engineer around it their recent history says they will.
There was the M3 Ultra 512GB Mac Studio, though.
…which is in the region of €20k on eBay, so the calculus doesn’t really shift…
It was only like $14k new. Why are you people acting like nobody has this stuff? People were already building clusters when that thing first came out. The research isn't bunk just because the refresh hasn't landed yet, my god.
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Puts into perspective how cheap the frontier models are via subs or even API.
You can't really compare API prices though. The cards that they are running frontier models on in the datacenter can service hundreds of simultaneous requests and are at nearly 100% utilization. This thing would sit on your desk and be used to service a single user for a couple hours per day.
It is the locally ran models that get me excited. They have an immutable user agreement and a focus on privacy.
Subscription / on-demand polices are a moving target, along with cost.
I foresee the ML market replicating the video streaming services market. Join us at a low rate and no advertisements. Six months latter, advertisements for everyone, unless you pay more $$. Now $$ will still show you ads. We are raising the rate to $$$ with adds ...
The main subsidy, from OpenAI, is ending 10/26. It’s still “cheap” for now compared to all the other non-open weight frontier models, but it won’t last since OpenAI’s stated goal is to make it so that there’s no much of a difference price wise between on demand API calls and subscriptions