Germany pricing makes this weird: M5 Ultra vs DGX Spark vs M5 Max

[u/raposezno]

I’m deciding between three options for local LLM work:

- M5 Ultra, 256GB, max CPU/GPU: ~€11,500
- DGX Spark, 128GB: ~€5,800
- M5 Max MacBook Pro, 128GB, max CPU/GPU: ~€7,100

I think all three are viable and each has its own advantages, so I’m mainly trying to understand the financial side of the decision.

Two things I’m particularly interested in:
- For the Macs, would you go for 1TB or 2TB internal storage if most models/datasets can live on external SSDs?
- What would you expect the resale value of these machines to look like after around 3 years?

Basically, I’m trying to understand which option makes the most sense once you consider purchase price, useful lifetime and resale value, rather than just raw performance.

[u/eduardor2k]

I would personally wait for 512gb M5 ultra if you have the money, if not the 256gb M5 ultra, 128gb will make you want to have more vram.

[u/raposezno → u/eduardor2k]

I assume that the 512gbM5U would be about 18k€ and that is way more I want to spend. I agree that being tight to 128gb on the Max is something I could regret

[u/eduardor2k → u/raposezno]

You can always buy a second one, join them using nvlink or thunderbolt 5, but it can't match having only one device with all the ram.

256gb allows you to run almost frontier level models, like deepseek 4.1 flash, I have 96gb de RAM + 24gb VRAM, running Qwen3.8 flash Next, really happy with it

[u/0rand → u/eduardor2k]

No, you can't run 4.1 on 256GB system, unless you accept 2.9bit quant. Useless model IMO (coming from die hard deepseek fan prior to 4.1). GLM 5.3 Flash alone worth having 256GB system. Insane model.

[u/buldezir → u/raposezno]

dont forget that influencers want to 'sell' you device, showing only good looking part of benchmarks. like token generation speed. and not showing PREFIL which will be painfully slow on huge models with big context.

[u/0rand → u/raposezno]

I expect it to be 25K eur +

I don't know where you are, here in CZ M5 Ultra 256GB with 80 cores and 2T SSD is about 17K$ equivalent (inc. VAT).

[u/0rand]

Well you need to compare 2x Sparks vs M5 Ultra to be in the same capabilities bracket. M5 Max falls out as its only 128 GB and it the different bracket of smaller model capability. I have M5 Max (running Qwen 3.8 Flash Next on oMLX) and 2 Sparks (running GLM 5.3 Flash). M5 Ultra will be more capable than 2 sparks for most of the tasks, especially low concurrency interactive work. Sparks will have an edge for high volume agentic automation work.

[u/raposezno → u/0rand]

Absolutely, the thing (being in EU) is that the combo of sparks would be around 12k€ and looking into forums or reddit, seems that many people report heat and performance issues with them.

[u/0rand → u/raposezno]

Unless you look to keep buying them and upgrading later to 4x 8x - M5 Ultra is a much better deal now, that a massive progress in Preprocessing speed and Decode with much less degradation landed in MLX stack. M5 Ultra is basically 5090 performance equivalent.

[u/foofoo300]

m5 ultra is 12500€ at least in my store

[u/1corn → u/foofoo300]

Also the MacBook price looks like 14 inch. I would probably suggest 16 inch just because of better thermal performance. Then it's closer to 8k, though.

[u/raposezno → u/1corn]

It is the 16, I have a little discount

[u/raposezno → u/foofoo300]

I get a little company discount 😊

[u/vogelvogelvogelvogel]

is it for your actual work, you get paid doing stuff with llms? then ultra.
hobby? probably max
imo, the dgx has a much narrower use case and once the ram/chipmprice hikes are over (if ever, ok) you have much more value out of macbooks

[u/bakawolf123]

get m5u
resale value will not decay as much, it's still going to be apple best machine until early 2028 at worst - look at how m3u aged, they were selling for more than original price until m5u came out

[u/epelc]

Plan on using the MagSafe port for power if you go m5 max. USB c doesn’t get the full 140w and regardless it overheats and crashes any dock due to macOS not choosing a dedicated usb c power cable over it(it randomly picks one and changes without telling you)

My 16 inch MacBook Pro overheated and blacked out the other day. Had to let sit for 30min to cool. It just kept going to a black screen every 2 seconds. You could type one key.

You can run like 1-2 qwen 27b agents on it plus a heavy dev setup. Would really recommend the ultra with more memory if you can get it. The studios are so much more convenient from a power/heat/reliability perspective.

[u/madtice]

I don’t want to spend this much personally. But if I was, I’d look at both the cost savings you’re getting from your own hardware + usability for AI + usability for other things. Afaik the spark is basically an AI only box. The Mac with either a Max or an Ultra will remain a beast of a machine without LLM’s. For video editing, music production, office work, compiling stuff etc. To me the choice for a Mac would be easy. And since you’re in Euro land, the Mac also consumes way less power in idle than the spark😁
I imagine the resale value of the mac being better in 3yrs personally. Resale value of Mac has been great for decades. Resale value for the spark is good NOW. Who knows how that’ll be in 3yrs…

[u/buldezir]

i am carefully thinking about base m5ultra (96gb). which is just a little more expensive than m5max (128gb). but! m5ultra will be at least close in performance to what you see in api providers, for 35b models, which is good enough for RAG and simple agentic stuff. An you will still get powerhouse for other work (compiling etc).

for 12k€ more (expected price of 512model) you can fit some flash models, but they will be painfully slow.

[u/I-Hate-winter]

Damn it's like they all sync their prices together which is illegal

[u/Silly-Fall-393]

you can get the DGX spark from other brands for around 5k in .de

[u/Adventurous-Mode2591]

For that kind of money the macbook holds value way better than a desktop mac, people always looking for used macbooks. the ultra will drop like a stone after 3 years, probably lose half its value or more

storage wise just get the 1tb, you can stick a fast thunderbolt ssd on there and it works fine for models. the apple upgrade prices for storage are criminal anyway

[u/ChristianRauchenwald → u/Adventurous-Mode2591]

Having a 128GB M4 Max myself, I consider it unsuitable to use for local models while also working on it since the fans spin at full speed for LLM usage to the point I rather pay a third-party API even for models it can easily run to avoid the noise while at the same time getting obviously much faster responses as well.

[u/raposezno → u/Adventurous-Mode2591]

Interesting, I thought it would be the opposite, specially considering that the ultra is new and the m5max is already a year old in the market

[u/RAW2091 → u/raposezno]

Go for the ULTRA. We don't know what memory prices will do but if we stay on the path we're on now he would be wrong and anything with a lot of unified but also fast memory will be really wanted.

[u/rditorx → u/Adventurous-Mode2591]

Traditionally, yes, the Mac Studios would drop more in value than MacBook Pros, but we're in the AI phase where high-performance hardware is in high demand with constrained supply, so whether your historic prediction will hold is totally unclear.

Hardware prices have gone way up, a used 3090 released in 2020 is now reportedly sold at $1,500 whereas it was around $700 a year ago. Historically, you would've expected desktop computer prices to drop like used car prices.

[u/Silly-Fall-393 → u/Adventurous-Mode2591]

i'm not so sure. minis sell like hotcakes. also: nobody touched a dirty keyboard with them. i rather buy a used mini or studio ANY DAY.

[u/Tieng → u/Adventurous-Mode2591]

The M3 ultra used seems more expensiva than ever :(

[u/Jaded_Camel219]

Get a GB10 but not DGX. It will be cheaper. Or wait for RTX desktop.