Two weeks ago I purchased an M5 Max MacBook Pro 16 inch with 128GB RAM and a 4TB SSD from Microcenter for $5100. (They had a $900 discount on the machine.) Not sure if that deal is still around, or if Microcenter still has any stock, but if you're in the market, I'd make a run for it! $5100 is now $8000 on Apple (and if ordered via Apple, it won't ship until August.)
You don't need all of the model in VRAM. 1 or 2 RTX Pro 6000s will do. $50K will get you there very nicely, and on a 1600 watt PSU if you go for the MAX-Q versions. (The same wattage PSU I'm typing this on, and have been using over the last 5 years.)
Not the new ones. Only the M1 and M2 have good support for Asahi. But you really don't need it. If you need Linux, use a VM (UTM is free and is equivalent to KVM/QEMU in speed, despite being a Type-2 Hypervisor.)
I'm amazed at how many folks on this forum see the Web UI as intrinsically tied to the service. As someone else rightly said, e-mail = IMAP + SMTP. That is true of Gmail as well.
Frankly, I've always hated the Gmail web UI, so I never use it. Not in the 22 years I've had a Gmail account.
IMHO, Superhuman gets a ton right... A Superhuman clone (maybe in VIM or Emacs) would be ideal if you don't want the AI features or the $40/month fee. Don't even need to change your mail address, since it connects to Gmail.
That's about what my OC'd and watercooled 4090 runs at. The cards are designed for it. Only problem I have is when sitting next to the computer under load -- I either have to open windows or blast the AC. Too bad I don't live in a cold climate -- that 60c heat output would come in handy :)
I've always thought about doing something like this in the Midwest US, but was always a bit nervous about condensation damaging the components over time; did you run with that sort of setup consistently, or only when pushing high scores? Ever run into issues with components failing?
Great article. I'm about to embark on a similar journey.... Doing a ton of AI development right now. Don't need a server, but a very, very high end workstation is super appealing to me right now. Looking at $50-$80k. 1TB RAM. 2x RTX Pro 6000s. 64 core Threadripper Pro. As many 4tb or 8tb nvme drives as I can stuff.
I envision NixOS at the core... then everything I need virtualized on top with KVM/QEMU. Maybe a dual boot setup with Windows for gaming and Flight Simulator (but I could virtualize that too with easy GPU passthrough.)
Lingering questions I'm working to figure out:
- Will 2 RTX Pro 6000s run on a 1600 watt PSU? Not sure how much higher I can go without calling an electrician. (standard US home.)
- Assuming I plop this into my home office, should I expect the PC to run significantly hotter than my current rig? (3960x threadripper, 128GB RAM, 1600watt psu, overclocked and watercooled 4090.) My water temp, measured at radiator, is about 60c at peak load. (This is the only number I care about, as this is what I have to consider to be comfortable sitting next to it.)
What do you want to do with the workstation? I have a similar setup:
- 512 GB
- Epyc 9684x
- 2x RTX 6000 Pro
- 1400 W PSU x 2 but in redundant mode
Mine is in a colo where it stays nice and cool. In my case, I went with less RAM and more GPUs (bought 4). Secondarily, the Max-Q blower version of an RTX 6000 Pro Blackwell is easier to keep cool and also only needs 300 W at the cost of very little performance. The non-max-q also only really use 300 W during inference, but the good thing about a lower power use is you can put more GPUs in very safely.
I assume you want the Threadripper Pro to maximize single-core performance? So you're spending a lot of time on CPU? Interesting stuff.
I gained a lot putting the machine somewhere else. TTFT on a thing like this is between 100-800 ms depending on batching and model size and so on, and your nearest datacenter is likely <10 ms. It sits on nice dual redundant power in a place where it's blown icy cool.
Good luck with your setup. If you get around to it, and end up writing about your setup on a blog, do share. Email in profile.
Very nice. Primary use case is application development, where the applications leverage a mixture of cloud based and local models. Modelling complex architectures. My work is primarily in the aerospace and defense arena, so hybrid and on-prem are important, as are ITAR and CMMC compliance. The idea is to have the local rig to build and validate architectural deployments that can sit on prem on customer hardware, in cloud, in gov cloud, or in a mix.
Not really looking at colocation, as this machine would double as a heavy duty gaming and flight sim rig. That means at least one regular RTX 6000 Pro. Not sure if I can mix and match with the Max-Q version, or if I even want blower fans in a desktop case (last time I did that was about 16-18 years ago with an ATI card... wasn't a fan--pun intended.)
In the early days (before Claude Code mastered Rust,) I would get into this annoying pattern where Claude used different names for variables between tests and implementation, get confused, and then more times than not, would change the implementation to match the test (which was not written first--was not doing TDD and thus not the behavior I wanted.)
Static languages prevent that. I've had great success with Claude writing Rust, and I think it's an excellent language for LLMs not just for low level work, but for production-grade code of all types (I see rust as better aligned to compete with C++, Java, and C#.)
I've also had great success with Claude writing C#. Using Claude, I've built C#/.Net in Linux, deployed in Windows (via Visual Studio) with Claude Code running in WSL, and it's been a great experience all around.
