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Dilemma: maxed out M5 MBA or wait for M6 MBA?

JPack said:
Today's report from Gurman about Apple skipping M6 Pro/Max further confirms your decision was probably the right one.

It implies a major architectural shift for M7 - enough of a change that Apple would prefer to go without M6 Pro/Max, rather than launch it and for it be non-competitive.
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Thanks for your reassurance, JPack.

To be honest, I’ve had some second guesses because M6 products are expected to be released in a few months. And the M6 is probably going to be a “cooler” SoC due to the new process. Also, some leaked data points at a revamped neural engine.

However, what you say is also true. The M6 will be released as a single chip, without Pro/Max/Ultra variants, and is likely aimed at the next iPad Pro, iMac and MacBook Air… But the M7 is probably going to undergo deeper architectural changes. There are even rumors about the M7 Ultra Mac Studio for 2028, so… yeah, I think the same, the M7 will probably be a major architectural redesign.

Also, in case I end up being happy with my M5 MacBook Air (because this wasn’t originally a stop-gap machine), my suspicion that the M5 SoC is going to receive a long and good support will be further confirmed once Apple launches the new redesigned OLED MacBook Pro with chips from the M5 family.
 
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Populus said:
I’m also a newbie, @Geekett . I’ve asked here and other forums regarding local LLMs, I’ve even asked other LLMs about this, and honestly all the replies fall in either of two categories: one group says 32 GB is the bare minimum, well others bluntly say that no useful LLM is able to run comfortably in such a tiny amount of RAM, they say minimum should be 128 GB.

At the same time, we are seeing how new approaches such as MoEs, our new compression methods, occur in the near future allow bigger models to run in 32 GB even less. To be honest, I’ve got this amount of RAM not only with local LLMs in mind, but also with other applications and software, and also future proofing, including future iterations of AI.

Right now, M7 looks really really well, and if I had to load a chip with a lot of RAM, it would definitely be the M7. But the question isn’t if a future chip will be much better, that’s a given, but rather if right now the M5 is a good purchase for the next year and a half, and in my opinion, I think it is.

I think we both did a good purchase, and that your machine is a great value; just be sure to watch closely the storage because maybe it could become a bit tight. But otherwise, I think it’s a good purchase. Nonetheless don’t get your hopes very high regarding local LLMS. This is a bit of a jump into the unknown in a field that gets new advancements every few weeks.
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Could I ask what a LLM is ?
 
Well shoot, I have been bouncing back and forth with either upgrading my iPad Pro M2 or my M2 Air and pulled the trigger on the iPad Pro M5. Love it but went back to my saved items and not only did the air go up $200 but the trade in value of my M2 Air went down $50. I was hoping to wait until August to justify another purchase… oh well ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 
Steelhead1957 said:
Well shoot, I have been bouncing back and forth with either upgrading my iPad Pro M2 or my M2 Air and pulled the trigger on the iPad Pro M5. Love it but went back to my saved items and not only did the air go up $200 but the trade in value of my M2 Air went down $50. I was hoping to wait until August to justify another purchase… oh well ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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I have an M2 iPad Pro, it’s an awesome device, but I knew my next investment would be in a Mac. I mean, it’s been fun using my M2 iPad Pro as my only device for a while, but honesty I miss macOS and I think I was due for an upgrade.
 
Dilemma solved.

I received the M5 MacBook Air, with 1TB and 32GB of RAM. If it was now, maybe I'd settle with 24GB of RAM because most local LLM apps won't use more than 20GB of memory, and the models they download are in the range of 8-9GB. I feel like 24GB/1TB would've been the sweet spot. But I'm not returning it because purchasing now the 24GB/1TB model would cost me the same as this 32GB/1TB did.

And yes, I don't regret getting 1TB of storage, because after installing a few things, storage decreases quite steadily. 512GB could've worked, sure, but I'd be hitting the limits of the drive in a few months. So 1TB is a must

This drive is hitting 7000 MB/s in write speed and 6600 MB/s in read speed. Impressive! I think this isn't a QLC drive, because the speeds are great. And it is noticeable whenever you open a new app: Apps open instantly!

I almost touched the screen in order to scroll down... so many years using an iPad have this consequences. The screen is gorgeous, no shadows, no weird colors... This is what IPS displays are great at! Viewing from an angle doesn't make the screen green like it happens on OLEDs...

Ideally, I'd have liked to get the last MacBook Air without an OLED screen, but I'm still not sure if that will be the M6 or the M7 one. We'll see... for now, I have a really capable machine, either if it's for 1 year, or for 10. Whatever the case is, this MacBook Air has now more resale value than it had when I purchased it, because of the price rise.
 
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Populus said:
And yes, I don't regret getting 1TB of storage
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You can make a case on a desktop (iMac, Mini, Studio) to under size your internal drive because its relatively easy to just use an external drive - that's what i did. I have the base Studio, and an external drive to hold all of my data.

On a laptop, particularly a MBA with limited ports, and the small form factor, its a much bigger ask to lug around a drive
 
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maflynn said:
You can make a case on a desktop (iMac, Mini, Studio) to under size your internal drive because its relatively easy to just use an external drive - that's what i did. I have the base Studio, and an external drive to hold all of my data.

On a laptop, particularly a MBA with limited ports, and the small form factor, its a much bigger ask to lug around a drive
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the issue is external drives aren't much cheaper these days.
 
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FrozenDarkness said:
the issue is external drives aren't much cheaper these days.
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And they're external. And speaking from my own painful experience, trying to use an external drive for day-to-day storage with a laptop is a massive PITA. (Not nearly as much of an issue on a desktop, but gets old very fast on a laptop.)
 
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Couldn't read all the responses, but I just bought a silver M5 MBA last night at Best Buy.

This is the first model of the notebook I have bought that has the M2-and later body language. My other AS MBA is an M1.

Really beautiful machine and I installed UTM to run older MacOS versions. 😁

Finding silver in stock is somewhat hit or miss, and the M6 could come with another price increase. Every Mac I own is silver (if Apple offered it in that color). Silver never goes out of style.

I've said it before, but if there's something I really want, I just buy it. Life is short, and there will always be something new.
 
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sdfox7 said:
Couldn't read all the responses, but I just bought a silver M5 MBA last night at Best Buy.

This is the first model of the notebook I have bought that has the M2-and later body language. My other AS MBA is an M1.

Really beautiful machine and I installed UTM to run older MacOS versions. 😁

Finding silver in stock is somewhat hit or miss, and the M6 could come with another price increase. Every Mac I own is silver (if Apple offered it in that color). Silver never goes out of style.

I've said it before, but if there's something I really want, I just buy it. Life is short, and there will always be something new.
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Biased because I also bought one but m5 MacBook Air is a great buy. I feel you won’t regret it with eventual price increases. It packs more than enough power
 
thadoggfather said:
Biased because I also bought one but m5 MacBook Air is a great buy. I feel you won’t regret it with eventual price increases. It packs more than enough power
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Check out Sequoia on M5!

1786409194984.png
 
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I get why people still ask this question, but it's more of a moot point these days with Apple Silicon. Unless you need something that the current models don't have (screen type or chip), or absolutely need the highest performance possible for your workflow, there's no bad Apple laptops any more.

It's not like the Intel days where there were so many compromises and models went for ages between speed bumps. If you buy any Air with enough memory for what you want to run, that machine will last for years and run anything you want to throw at it.
 
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Populus said:
Dilemma solved.

I received the M5 MacBook Air, with 1TB and 32GB of RAM. If it was now, maybe I'd settle with 24GB of RAM because most local LLM apps won't use more than 20GB of memory, and the models they download are in the range of 8-9GB. I feel like 24GB/1TB would've been the sweet spot. But I'm not returning it because purchasing now the 24GB/1TB model would cost me the same as this 32GB/1TB did.

And yes, I don't regret getting 1TB of storage, because after installing a few things, storage decreases quite steadily. 512GB could've worked, sure, but I'd be hitting the limits of the drive in a few months. So 1TB is a must

This drive is hitting 7000 MB/s in write speed and 6600 MB/s in read speed. Impressive! I think this isn't a QLC drive, because the speeds are great. And it is noticeable whenever you open a new app: Apps open instantly!

I almost touched the screen in order to scroll down... so many years using an iPad have this consequences. The screen is gorgeous, no shadows, no weird colors... This is what IPS displays are great at! Viewing from an angle doesn't make the screen green like it happens on OLEDs...

Ideally, I'd have liked to get the last MacBook Air without an OLED screen, but I'm still not sure if that will be the M6 or the M7 one. We'll see... for now, I have a really capable machine, either if it's for 1 year, or for 10. Whatever the case is, this MacBook Air has now more resale value than it had when I purchased it, because of the price rise.
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you got yourself a very capable machine for years to come! I have the 24/1tb version of this and it's an absolute beast of a laptop.
 
ascender said:
I get why people still ask this question, but it's more of a moot point these days with Apple Silicon. Unless you need something that the current models don't have (screen type or chip), or absolutely need the highest performance possible for your workflow, there's no bad Apple laptops any more.

It's not like the Intel days where there were so many compromises and models went for ages between speed bumps. If you buy any Air with enough memory for what you want to run, that machine will last for years and run anything you want to throw at it.
Click to expand...
1BadManVan said:
you got yourself a very capable machine for years to come! I have the 24/1tb version of this and it's an absolute beast of a laptop.
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Yes but...

I'm already eyeing the latest leaks about the M6, because apparently it will be much more efficient and have much higher memory bandwidth. And... I would like to get the last MacBook Air with a non-OLED display, as my eyes can't tolerate OLED (that's a whole different debate, please OLED fans, don't start with that). And apparently, the M6 MBA will be the last one with an IPS display.

Also less heat, more performance, even more focus on local AI... And I'm realizing I am not using the whole 32GB of RAM, and 24GB would've been enough for my needs, as I'm only going to use local models for retrieving information from documents and markdown files, sort of Obsidian-associated RAG. And for that, 24GB of RAM is more than enough.

I'm not sure, if I keep it, I will be able to sell it eventually without losing much money, that's the good thing about having purchased it before the price increase (plus edu discount). Also, I'll have something to work with until March 2027, and by then, I'll be more sure if I can really use this 32GB of RAM for a good RAG system or not.

All of this local AI and RAG and stuff is only at the earliest stages, there barely are already coded apps that do this stuff, and will take time to bloom. But I suspect the M6, with almost 200GB/s bandwidth (compared to 153GB/s on the M5) will be more capable and future-proof... Dammit. I guess I'll keep it, and next year will try to sell it without losing money. Who knows, maybe the RAM situation gets much worse, and there aren't MacBook Airs left to buy...
 
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Populus said:
Also less heat, more performance, even more focus on local AI... And I'm realizing I am not using the whole 32GB of RAM, and 24GB would've been enough for my needs, as I'm only going to use local models for retrieving information from documents and markdown files, sort of Obsidian-associated RAG. And for that, 24GB of RAM is more than enough.
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Every new chip is going to have less heat, more performance, more focus on AI. That's tech for you, there's always something better coming along.

Unless you're buying a machine to run local LLMs and want the latest chip in a Mac Studio with a shed load of RAM, the current Air will do everything you want efficiently whilst running nice and cool.

And unless you're running incredibly demanding workflows (in which case why are you considering an Air?), I would wager you won't even notice what speed of memory its got, let alone the difference between 153GB/s and 200GB/s.

If you need it, buy it.
 
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ascender said:
Every new chip is going to have less heat, more performance, more focus on AI. That's tech for you, there's always something better coming along.

Unless you're buying a machine to run local LLMs and want the latest chip in a Mac Studio with a shed load of RAM, the current Air will do everything you want efficiently whilst running nice and cool.

And unless you're running incredibly demanding workflows (in which case why are you considering an Air?), I would wager you won't even notice what speed of memory its got, let alone the difference between 153GB/s and 200GB/s.

If you need it, buy it.
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You’re absolutely right. I don’t think I’d notice the increase in bandwidth and maybe even the SSD in that next MBA gets downgraded in order to cut costs…

If the jump in performance is too big from the M5 to the M6 (you will agree that not all the generational jumps are the same), then I guess I’ll be able to sell this computer without losing money. In theory we’ll see the M6 in a couple of months.
 
Populus said:
Welp, I guess I should stop thinking about returning it, use it for the next year, and see how things evolve during this time (M6 performance, shortages, price increases, upgrade prices…).

9to5mac.com

MacBook Air shortages: where to buy one right now - 9to5Mac

MacBook Air shipping estimates at Apple have slipped to September amid memory supply constraints. Here's where you can still get one quickly.
9to5mac.com 9to5mac.com
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I dont think M6 is going to be 'all that' personally.
Even if local LLM's are your thing, we still have a ways to go before we have local LLM replacements that rival the top cloud ones without a 20k PC configuration. Laptops are still in another league in that regard.

And probably lots of room for efficiency too on the software side / innovation on utilizing compute.
 
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Populus said:
Wow... I don't know if it's the icons, the light mode (right now I'm on dark mode) or just the operating system, but your Sequoia desktop looks much more lively and colorful than mine.

Hopefully GG will feel a bit like that again.
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I have a feeling that the M4 MBP COULD outlast the M5 Air as programs get more demanding.

The MBP has cooling fans, which the Air does not, which might lead to throttling in the future.

Here's my M4 MBP on Sequoia:

1786930634734.png
 
sdfox7 said:
I have a feeling that the M4 MBP COULD outlast the M5 Air as programs get more demanding.

The MBP has cooling fans, which the Air does not, which might lead to throttling in the future.

Here's my M4 MBP on Sequoia:

View attachment 2653222
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Nah, the M5 Air will receive one more year of macOS updates. And the fact that it doesn’t have active cooling, even though it’s not noticeable in small bursts, for longer periods the thermal pad mod can help a lot.
 
Populus said:
Nah, the M5 Air will receive one more year of macOS updates. And the fact that it doesn’t have active cooling, even though it’s not noticeable in small bursts, for longer periods the thermal pad mod can help a lot.
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Wouldn't you expect an MBP with fans to better handle heavier workloads in the future, without needing to throttle to stay cool like the MBA? Seems logical to me.
 
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