Here’s a text edition:
For $50k the inference hardware market forces a trade-off between capacity and throughput:
* Apple M3 Ultra Cluster ($50k): Maximizes capacity (3TB). It is the only option in this price class capable of running 3T+ parameter models (e.g., Kimi k2), albeit at low speeds (~15 t/s).
* NVIDIA RTX 6000 Workstation ($50k): Maximizes throughput (>80 t/s). It is superior for training and inference but is hard-capped at 384GB VRAM, restricting model size to <400B parameters.
To achieve both high capacity (3TB) and high throughput (>100 t/s) requires a ~$270,000 NVIDIA GH200 cluster and data center infrastructure. The Apple cluster provides 87% of that capacity for 18% of the cost.
Here’s a text edition: For $50k the inference hardware market forces a trade-off between capacity and throughput:
* Apple M3 Ultra Cluster ($50k): Maximizes capacity (3TB). It is the only option in this price class capable of running 3T+ parameter models (e.g., Kimi k2), albeit at low speeds (~15 t/s).
* NVIDIA RTX 6000 Workstation ($50k): Maximizes throughput (>80 t/s). It is superior for training and inference but is hard-capped at 384GB VRAM, restricting model size to <400B parameters.
To achieve both high capacity (3TB) and high throughput (>100 t/s) requires a ~$270,000 NVIDIA GH200 cluster and data center infrastructure. The Apple cluster provides 87% of that capacity for 18% of the cost.