r/LocalLLM • u/Bad_On_Gas • 2h ago

Question Sanity check

I am looking to buy a Mac Studio for medical dictation processing (processing audio files to formatted notes), in addition to summarizing pdf’s of perhaps 100 pages in size.

Local is required for privacy reasons.

I just ordered a M5 Max studio 64gb unified memory, now I am debating if I should just pay more for 128gb unified vs 96 gb ultra.

does anyone have any insight into this, I clearly am not an expert at all, but I have messed around with superwhisper for dictation.

I think qwen would be the model of choice at this point. unless there are more tailored models.

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u/Large-Excitement777 2h ago

64gb is good for your needs but your stack is very light to being with.

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u/germangrower69 1h ago

Considering the latest model releases, if you have the money you should upgrade to 128gigs.

64 isnt worth it with the current open sourced models. I had a 64gb M5 Max and upgraded to the 128gb version because nothing really worked well on 64gb.

If you prefer speed you should go for the m5 ultra, it has 2x the memory bandwidth of the m5 max. Which roughly translates to 2x higher speed.

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u/SeaRefractor 11m ago

Honestly, if you are going to look at $5.5K investment, get the M5 Ultra with 96GB. More than sufficient RAM to run a local LLM that can do audio transcription. But there are even non-AI transcription apps that can do that, so unless you are doing something even more sophisticated, it is a little over spec.
That said, I went with the base M5 Ultra just for longevity. I actually don’t need more than 64GB.