Best moment to sell a Mac Studio?

[chfilm]

Hey guys,
I own an m2ultra mac studio with the max amount of cores, 128gb of ram and 2tb of storage. It's still a beast of a machine but lately I found myself relying pretty much only on my m4max macbook pro, even though the ram constraint is real and sometimes annoys the hell out of me for motion design and editing.

I am definitely in the market for a new m5 ultra once it comes out, but no one knows when that'll be. I just asked myself if maybe right now is the perfect time to sell the m2ultra because it's so hard to come by a new mac studio right now and especially with a decent amount of ram.

Do you think that prices will drop significantly once the m5 ultra comes out? Should I try to sell it right now and survive on the macbook until presumably late autumn, or you think it wont make much of a difference because memory prices are just gonna stay high and give my old machine a nice price bump.?

 

[Ifti]

I don't see memory prices coming back down for a while yet - at least another year

 

[velocityg4]

With 128GB RAM it’s definitely a good time. Because of the shortages I wouldn’t expect the M5 anytime soon. I think MacBooks are Apple’s priority for memory allocation at the moment.

When they do release the M5. You’ll be hard pressed to even order one at 128GB. Before the back order queue is filled up.

 

[benholt]

Same boat here — M2 Ultra Studio + 16" MBP M3 Max — and I went back and forth on this in the spring. The thing that kept me from selling was gap risk: if you offload the Studio now and the M5 Ultra slips into next spring, you're stuck on the laptop for six months, and you already said the RAM ceiling annoys you for motion work. Used 128GB M2 Ultras are holding price right now precisely because new 128GB anything is basically unobtainable, so waiting another quarter doesn't really cost you much on resale. I'd rather eat $300 of eventual depreciation than burn a render weekend on a thermally-throttled MBP.

 

[dinobear]

can't imagine a better time than now. you literally can't buy one right now. the best time ends as soon as its back on apple store, which you can't predict.

 

[maflynn]

Do you think that prices will drop significantly once the m5 ultra comes out?

I'd say yes, as people like you start flooding the market with used M2 and M3 Ultra studios. The rampocalypse may have some impact on pricing but I think the more people sell their used studios to get the M5, will still drive the price down.

 

[SalisburySam]

One never knows what Apple might offer as trade in for a new M5 ultra if/when it comes out. Probably less than private sale but could be compelling and allow you to keep and use your current machine until then. Is this a workflow and usage consideration, or a financial one? And if it is financial, why is it financial? Doesn’t what you do with the machine and how it contributes to your workflow count more? Isn’t that why you bought the tricked out M2 Ultra to begin with?

Maybe the question should be: “Should I sell my machine at all, or just use its amazing capabilities until I see what the M5 or even M6 series machines can do for my workflow?”

 

[tinycg]

I think nows a great time, it's just also prime time for scammers. That said somebody like sellyourmac.com from the OWC people are willing to give you something like $3500 for it, and then turn around and resell it, if youre not using it, buy high, sell high, at least it could offset whatever the crazy cost of the M5U is gonna be. I've got an M1U and missed the boat in terms of resale value and upgrading which I was tempted to do earlier this year and then waited to long.

 

[BeatCrazy]

I think nows a great time, it's just also prime time for scammers. That said somebody like sellyourmac.com from the OWC people are willing to give you something like $3500 for it, and then turn around and resell it, if youre not using it, buy high, sell high, at least it could offset whatever the crazy cost of the M5U is gonna be. I've got an M1U and missed the boat in terms of resale value and upgrading which I was tempted to do earlier this year and then waited to long.

You sure you missed the boat on M1 Ultra resale? I haven't followed it closely, but depending on your memory config, it could still be highly desirable for local AI models.

 

[chfilm]

So I’ve been back to the office now properly and have been using the studio more those last couple of days. It does make a significant difference having that extra ram.. yes the single core performance ain’t as snappy as the m4max but overall it runs much more stable.. so I’ll keep it for now.

 

[CWallace]

Do you think that prices will drop significantly once the m5 ultra comes out?

Very unlikely, IMO. The memory suppliers are demanding customers like Apple commit to very-long term contracts (up to five years) so it is unlikely (again, IMO) that prices will drop before the middle of next decade once the new capacity comes online.

(And I am not sure how much of that additional capacity will be the LPDDR memory Apple products use, compared to the HBM memory AI-focused GPUs use.)