Gene ran the real numbers on ditching cloud AI for your own hardware. A maxed-out Mac Studio (M5 Ultra, 256GB RAM, 8TB SSD) runs about $14,000. The alternative: two Nvidia DGX Spark boxes (128GB RAM each, $5,000 apiece at retail, though scalpers want closer to $7,000 right now), linked by a 200Gb connection so they act as one shared 256GB machine. His take: “Local AI, man, we called it here first… it’s where it’s going to go” — though by his own admission, cloud AI is still the cheaper route for most people today.
Amazon doesn’t carry the high-end Mac Studio configuration discussed — that one’s configured directly at apple.com/mac-studio. For a cheaper way into the lineup, Amazon does sell a renewed base Mac Studio: amazon.com (M2 Max, 32GB RAM/512GB SSD — well below the specs discussed, so think of it as a taste of the lineup, not the same machine). The Nvidia DGX Spark isn’t sold on Amazon at all; find it at nvidia.com or Micro Center.
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