I've been asking around for a while and can't find anything. so if someone who actually switched from 2+ sparks to a studio (ideally a 256) I'd love to know why from what I gathered: Macs are only better for *single stream* decoding. and single stream decoding is a small part of an actual harnessed workflow. Any and everything else, sparks or some other cluster seem to perform equal or better in every metric. As in, if you use chatgpt for just the 'chat' feature, studios are amazing ... but any multi-step/involved workload outside of that seems to favor sparks I personally dont want to speculate today on software unlocks or future improvements in hardware especially for hardware purchased today. in fact, I think either option is safe bet because the opportunity cost can be remedied by software unlocks that allow you to get the best of both worlds. but I try not to factor it in because it's tomorrow's speculation + it applies to both sides of the equation I personally think Macs are better than sparks if you are using only 1 spark ... but the idea of sparks is to use at least 2 Also, there is no 128gb m5u so the comparison starts at 256. Even more so, 512 Mac(s) have a similar memory bandwidth to a 512gb cluster of sparks. Studios lead by 10% more memory bandwidth, I think many people are unaware of this. it's all similarly priced now too. I think people who get Mac Studios do so because they want a Mac, simplicity, draw less energy (you're saving $5-10/mo with a Mac). Don't get me wrong, these are decisions that impact a purchase but they are non AI workflow related reasons I'm just being brutally honest in an effort to really understand what's going on and where do studios actually excel in comprehensive inference pipelines. Do Macs outperform sparks if you are using multiple models where one or both models are split between the sparks but unified within the Mac? TLDR: Mac's are better than sparks if you prioritize simplicity, lower power consumption, and you just want a general computer that also happens to run local AI. But if you want better performance in using local AI to build things, it seems sparks wins at effectively every metric. I'm struggling to see where Macs outperform sparks in real multi-step AI workflows.   submitted by   /u/AceDenied [link]   [comments]