I'm been chewing on the idea of getting a new laptop. My current MacBook Pro is not exactly sluggish – it has 32GB RAM and the M1 Max processor – but it does chug a little with Lightroom, has 2TB storage which isn't quite enough, plus it would be a great upgrade for one of my kids. So after 5 years I think an upgrade might be in order.
Trouble is, laptop prices have skyrocketed because the AI companies are hoovering up all the RAM, so there's a shortage which is being called a RAMpocalypse. You should have bought Sandisk stock last year, for sure.
Things are expensive right now, but there's little sign that prices are going to drop. Tim Cook warned of price hikes this week. There are glimmers of hope that AI demand might slow, but most analysts seem to think high prices are here for another year or two yet. And even if/when production ramps up, do you really think the prices will be slashed?
Hence me thinking that upgrading now might not be such a bad idea, rather than waiting a year or two. But what should I upgrade to?
When buying a computer, I try to buy to cover my needs for the next 5 years or so. You should buy the most pimped machine you can afford, basically, and try not to scrimp. I'm still a fan of the Mac, despite there being a growing number of haters in the dev community. macOS just works for me, for both dev as well as for all my photography, and I love the hardware so I configured a new MacBook and maxxed it out. Are you sitting down?
Top-of-the-line, bleeding edge tech is never cheap, and an M5 Max with 40-core GPU, 128GB RAM and 8TB hard drive is wildly powerful. I don't think this is an entirely unreasonable purchase, since my photos take up vast amounts of storage and that processing power and memory will open up a fascinating world of local AI models for software development. But seven grand is a massive outlay, no question. Kinda ridiculous, even.
The Linux community has been raving about Framework computers recently, and I love the idea of an upgradable computer for sure, so I thought I'd check it out. My Lightroom addiction means Linux is out of the question (unless Adobe start to offer native Linux apps, yeah right, or I try and use some emulation hacks, or just ditch it for Rapid Raw), but I could, perhaps, move to Windows. This fills me with dread to be honest (I just don't get on with Windows – I love Unix too much), but I am Framework-curious so I configured their 13 Pro laptop to see what the damage would be.
This is £1000 cheaper, but that's for half the RAM of the Mac. It's not as powerful as the Mac option, with "only" 64GB RAM and an Ultra X7 358H processor (there's a more powerful Ultra X9 388H but this isn't available right now), and it's 13" not 14". The M5 Max is more powerful, but ChatGPT suggests that "it might be overkill unless you genuinely need Max-tier GPU, 64–128GB memory, video/media horsepower, or you keep machines for years."
Side by side, the Mac doesn't actually seem that expensive, relatively speaking. But is it actually too much compute? If I plan to run large AI models locally, I might be able to justify it, but I can't say with any conviction that I will actually do that. I'm happy paying for frontiers given my usage.
I can drastically reduce the cost by configuring a MacBook Pro with a lowly (!) M5 Pro, 64GB RAM and a 4TB hard drive. This brings it to £3,999 – a saving of £2,979! I'd love 8TB of storage, but that's not an option with the M5 Pro for some reason. 4TB is definitely enough for the next 2-3 years anyway, and it'll be cheaper to buy my own 8TB external SSD if and when the time comes.
Four grand is still a lot to shell out, but it doesn't seem that crazy. My current laptop cost £3,599 in 2021, and I'd certainly benefit from the increased spec, so given that the CEO says prices are going to increase, I think it makes sense to bite the bullet and sit comfortable for the next 5-6 years at least.
What do you think?