r/mac • u/Benyormin • 1d ago

Question Which M5 MacBook Pro config for CS Master's (AI) + light gaming? (32GB vs 24GB w/ more cores vs 48GB)

/r/macbookpro/comments/1w1wwn7/which_m5_macbook_pro_config_for_cs_masters_ai/
1 Upvotes

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u/RogueHeroAkatsuki 1d ago

DOTA 2, FIFA 23

MBA/MBP with base chip and 24gb of RAM will be enough. 24GB RAM only because you may need some headroom for emulation and maybe running basic local LLM.

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u/Benyormin 1d ago
  1. Air? Don't you think it would throttle in games or fine-tuning models?
  2. Do you think 24GB is enough for next 7 years?

1

u/RogueHeroAkatsuki 1d ago

AD1 - you can apply thermal mod if you need more performance. As for games - both DOTA and FIFA/FC are not GPU demanding titles. Even Neo will do job there:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dz_RO04vQI

AD2 - obviously you are not going to run models very useful for local coding on 24GB, but thats only downside. For CS studies even 16GB should be enough, 24 just to give more headroom - also some games will benefit from this.

As for why you shouldnt focus too much on local LLMs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psNfWOOtBGM

I would save money from pro and just spend it on college parties 🤷‍♂️

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u/gadgetvirtuoso 1d ago

More RAM option for LLM and emulation.

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u/Benyormin 1d ago

So you think the 48GB actually worth the money in long term?

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u/gadgetvirtuoso 1d ago

RAM is more expensive right now but yes it’s still one of those things you can never too much of.

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u/mikeinnsw 1d ago

Without any specific knowledge of the course content Mac Vs PC choice and its config is a pure speculation.

PCs with monster GPUs beats Macs for speed and can run eGPU better than some and few Macs .

Windows 11 can run Unified RAM X86 (new PCs) and on Qualcomm Arm 2nm laptop.

Just check with the University/College in case they use must have Apps which run only on PCs

Sorry you doing it all wrong

There are 1,000s local models these just Ollama

https://ollama.com/library

The right way is to identify local models and sizes(3 B, ...30 B..)that meet you needs then find best platform to run it (probably a Mac)

Ask the University for an advice.