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Flip Flopping between macOS and Windows
- Thread starter LiE_
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maflynn
macrumors Broadwell
Wow, that's just insane. I can't imagine, that these price increases are sustainable for the consumer PC market. I mean, I was balking at the price of building a new PC last June, and settled in on the Mac Studio for a variety of reasons.
My only concern with the M5 Ultra is the price point - will we see something along the lines of the current pricing or will it be steeper - only time will tell.
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It's definitely hitting demand if you judge by what the gaming hardware channels are talking about. Videos that talk about RAM vs performance for those considering 16 GB instead of 32. Or where to look for used RAM. Or SSD options or sales that may give you less performance (like SATA3 instead of NVMe), or how to better repurpose or cannibalize older hardware.
That I routinely see the sales at Microcenter, Costco and Amazon and Tim Cook's comments on hoping to be able to manage margins says that they are trying to hold the line on pricing. But nobody knows how much further prices will rise. That 990 Pro for $700+ was $400+ in December. I keep an eye on storage prices. Not so much on DRAM anymore as I have no plans to do a build with these prices. But it was a shock to me that the 990 Pro is this expensive. I thought that they would just go to $400+ or $500+ and then stop.
If prices keep rising then Apple will have to raise them. I think that a lot of Mac Studio and Mac mini owners have gone to small internal with a large external. This keeps your costs down and makes it easier to migrate to a new system and you can take your storage with you. RAM and SSD depreciate faster than the overall system on Macs.
Yeah, I have two identical machines but they are my work tools where they get used for a lot of heavy video upscaling/ video AI work which Apple just can't get anywhere close in terms of speed.
They're great appreciating assets currently but I do fear slightly if anything goes wrong, its won't be cheap buying new memory etc.
Yeah, the prices are just out of control. From what I gather Apple have stockpiled ram so it'll be interesting to see what they do with it price wise.
You can still get PC components cheaper though, I got 2x 4tb nvme for £270 each, 64gb drr5 for £280 and a 5090 fe for £1799. Granted the RAM and NVME were from eBay but they were new.
I can't see a world where a M5 Ultra competes with the RTX 5090 since Apple just won't let it pull anywhere near the amount of watts that Nvidia do.
anshuvorty
macrumors 68040
It's not just about the watts. The entire architecture between Apple's GPU and Nvidia's GPU is entirely different too.
Weirdly, the 2TB gen 5 M2 drive i also bought as my main OS drive hasn't really moved in price like the bigger drives have..
On the power/wattage issue, I can't see Apple getting close tbh due to the power thing. People and companies spending thousands on a machine(s) that want the best in raw GPU power aren't really that bothered about saving money on their power bill if they can get their jobs and work done much faster.
ClaraStahlbaum
macrumors 6502a
Really at this point I don't ever see myself going back to Windows. I just don't see the appeal in Windows whatsoever, especially with what has become of Windows 11 over time.
I've noticed that too. A lot of motherboards still don't support Gen 5 and they're not that useful as external drives as Thunderbolt 5 is still around the speeds of Gen 4.
eltoslightfoot
macrumors 68040
I would really like to agree, but Apple hasn't been exactly covering themselves with glory lately either. MS is already showing signs of contrition. Apple still hasn't hit bottom. Of course this is all my opinion, I certainly understand other views.
ClaraStahlbaum
macrumors 6502a
The only thing I don't like about Mac is that I can't play some Windows games on it, though that is more an issue with those specific games for not supporting Mac.
maflynn
macrumors Broadwell
Depending on the your mac's capability, Crossover may be an option. Also you can take a look at Geforce Now - the game streaming service. I've had some intermittent success, but overall I felt it wasn't worth the cost, though there is a free tier to try it out.
M5 is still faster but Panther Lake wins a few benchmarks by a little. The impression I get is that Panther Lake may be more efficient than M5 though. The remaining battery life for M5 was 40% while it was 38% for the Asus but the MacBook Pro weighs 3.5 pounds and likely has a 72.5 watt-hour battery while the Asus weighs under 2.2 pounds and probably has a 57 watt hour battery.
There are some nice improvements that have been traditional weak areas with Windows laptops. The webcam and microphone are awful though. My preference this year would be the Thinkpad X1 Carbon for the ease of repairability and upgradeability.
There are some nice improvements that have been traditional weak areas with Windows laptops. The webcam and microphone are awful though. My preference this year would be the Thinkpad X1 Carbon for the ease of repairability and upgradeability.
eltoslightfoot
macrumors 68040
The reparability of that thing is quite crazy. It's almost (maybe better in some ways) as good as the Framework laptops.
If I wasn't so attached to my Surface Pro 9 (it's my iPad equivalent as well), I would seriously consider one of those X1 Carbons.
Rumors that the new MacBook is coming out soon. The specs so far are disappointing: 12-12.9 inches, 8 GB of RAM. What I'm curious about is the weight and if you can upgrade the RAM and SSD. I'm not so much interested in the price as the specs.
Same thing about an M6 Pro 14.
Same thing about an M6 Pro 14.
maflynn
macrumors Broadwell
I think its supposed to be a budget laptop, so the specs will be far below that a MacRumor's member would want.
They could make it an executive business model with higher specs.
maflynn
macrumors Broadwell
Rumors are that its not going to have a M series chip but the A series, iphone processor.
1BadManVan
macrumors 68040
Big question still remaining for these is what they will actually sell for once they hit retail shelves. Only worthwhile consideration if the price is competitive against a macbook offering. Plus whether its enough for someone to still consider windows 11
Windows 11 is preferable to me because one of my important programs runs far more efficiently on x86 and one of the other important programs I run has major problems with Tahoe but not Sequoia. I am waiting to hear if the problems are fixed under 26.3. I expect the problems to be fixed by this summer but that's more hope than certainty right now.
What I'm looking for is relatively comparable to a MacBook Pro: 32 GB of RAM, 1 TB SSD for $3k. And I'm hoping that I can pick the ports I want and change them when I feel like it.
jakey rolling
macrumors 65816
This is more of a macOS issue for me as I use 8 TB Western Digital Elements drives for Time Machine. I bought one a month ago as I usually buy one every four to five years in case the old one dies. I'm glad I bought it but should I get another? Prices are up 10% from when I bought and there are far fewer models available now. This reminds me of last fall when SSDs started to go up slowly and then they just exploded in price.
maflynn
macrumors Broadwell
I think I can go out on a limb and state that WD selling every hard drive for 2026, will have almost zero impact on the majority of consumers looking to buy or even use a computer. I was looking at Microcenter this morning and had no trouble finding storage options.
I doubt very much companies are buying up hard drives to push consumers to the cloud - not when no new computer [for consumers] comes with spinning platters.
I don't think that companies are buying hard drives for that purpose either.
But AI companies have created a bubble. And to prevent the bubble from collapsing, you need to grow the bubble even larger.
My observation on hard drives is that there are fewer size options and prices are up somewhat. The same thing that I saw before RAM and SSD prices went up. I think that most thought it ludicrous that RAM and SSDs would become so expensive but here we are.