Used Mac Studio buying advice needed

[luderacer94]

New member here thanks for any advice. I have a 2017 Imac and am looking to upgrade to a used Mac Studio. My plan is to use the new Mac for Ios app developement and AI experimentation. I am having a hard time figuring out what best meets my needs at the lowest cost.

M1 Max 64Gb 2Tb 24GPU for $1350 vs
M1 Max 32Gb 1Tb 24GPU for $950 or
M2 Max 64Gb 1Tb 30GPU for $1500 or
M4 Max 32Gb 512Gb 32GPU for $1900

Which would you buy based on needs mentioned above? Or is another option not listed above a better choice? Thanks

 

[xraydoc]

New member here thanks for any advice. I have a 2017 Imac and am looking to upgrade to a used Mac Studio. My plan is to use the new Mac for Ios app developement and AI experimentation. I am having a hard time figuring out what best meets my needs at the lowest cost.

M1 Max 64Gb 2Tb 24GPU for $1350 vs
M1 Max 32Gb 1Tb 24GPU for $950 or
M2 Max 64Gb 1Tb 30GPU for $1500 or
M4 Max 32Gb 512Gb 32GPU for $1900

Which would you buy based on needs mentioned above? Or is another option not listed above a better choice? Thanks

Running LLMs is very RAM and GPU dependent. So you'll want to maximize both. Storage space can be expanded with external drives.

 

[picpicmac]

If you can live with base model specs for an M2 Studio (32GB/512GB) then MicroCenter has new (old stock) M2 Max Mac Studio for $1400. So being new, you'll get the 1 year warranty, you may even be able to buy Applecare if you want it.

 

[JSRinUK]

As posted above, if you’re experimenting with AI/LLM, you may quickly find that 32GB is a pinch. I didn’t buy my MBP (24GB RAM) with AI/LLM in mind but, when I discovered it could do it and I started “experimenting”, that 24GB soon showed its limits (you definitely don’t want to rely on swap). I now have a Studio with 128GB RAM, which is my personal sweet spot, but I should think 64GB would enable you to experiment just fine until you decide you may wish to go further some time in the future.

However, if you envisage your “AI experimenting” is going to remain small, maybe 32GB would be okay for you.

 

[splifingate]

Given those choices:

M2 Max 64Gb 1Tb 30GPU for $1500

That being said, I dropped ~USD3000 for my (current) NIB M2 Max 64G/2TB...and I do not use it for any of your listed intents.

 

[luderacer94]

Thanks for feedback I was really trying to narrow down what are most important specs and from that pick the best deal I can find. How much should I be concerned about m2 vs m1? Watching videos I even started considering m4 mini pro but ram seems like it might be a concern unless I get top spec and the. Price is week above used m1 and m2s