I have to see I'm in the rtx camp. A dual rtx3090 workstation with 200G of ram and zen5 9950x cpu. All watercooled.

The only reason I can tell it's on, is the very quiet hum of the slow speed water pump. Large fans run at 1200rpm and are fully quiet.

I have over a meter of radiators there.

Fun fact, I bought my first rtx3090 4 years ago. A year ago I bought another one and they are still the same price used.

I may buy another one (for my servers)

If you are in Apple ecosystem, and have reasons to own one besides inference, then buying a used Mac mini pro isn’t such a bad idea. I just bought a regular Mac mini just to provide a nice front end to my Ubuntu workstation. But if all you want is inference, then a cheap PC with a 32gb 9700 (or two!) in it is far cheaper. This specific thread was about someone who already has a MacBook. A cheap PC and GPU pairs well. Or a spark: slower but more memory. Or fuck it! Get a 5090 or a 6000!

>You clearly do not seem to understand how convenient the MacMini actually IS - the form factor, how quiet it is, how durable it is, how well it integrates with other Macs, how well it works as a bridge to a personal agent like Hermes (integration with iMessage, Calendar, Reminders, iCloud, etc).

If you are that locked in to Apple, its pretty easy to buy a used Mac Mini older gen for all the non AI stuff.

But this is a discussion about inference. Buying a Mac anything for any sort of local inference is a COLOSSAL waste of money.