Ask HN: M5 MacBook Pro buyers, worth spending the $$$ to maybe run LLMs local?

Re:Ask HN: M5 MacBook Pro buyers, worth spending the $$$ to ... by al_borland on Monday March 30, 2026 @12:36AM (#47570427)

I have an M1 Pro MBP. I keep being tempted to upgrade, but when I look at the improvements being made, it makes me continue to wait. In day to day use, I’m not hurting at all with the M1 Pro and it seems like I’ll be able to get so much more in a couple years if trends continue.

When it comes to local AI, I’m of the option that this is where things should go in the long-term. However, I want to see the market mature more to understand what that will look like. I don’t want to buy today in hopes of something down the road.

So pretty much all my buy signals are telling me to kick the can down the road.

This site was posted a couple weeks back. You can select the M5 Max from the list and see how it would run various local models. That may help make the decision.

https://www.canirun.ai/

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Re:Ask HN: M5 MacBook Pro buyers, worth spending the $$$ to ... by Cheese48923846 on Monday March 30, 2026 @08:02AM (#47573155)

Ditto. On an M1 mac mini since 2021. Cheap little machine. Chugs the typical web developer workload like a champ.

I will try to get 10 years use out of it. 2031 will be time to evaluate the next machine.

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Re:Ask HN: M5 MacBook Pro buyers, worth spending the $$$ to ... by tpurves on Monday March 30, 2026 @07:43PM (#47581060)

Yep, I am in same boat. 32GB M1 Pro myself, and ya still a very solid machine. Thanks for that link.

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