M5 Ultra vs 2 DGX Sparks… The Number You're Not Looking At

Comparing the performance of an M5 Ultra Mac Studio against a dual DGX Spark cluster reveals distinct trade-offs for local LLM inference. While the Mac Studio offers a simplified, all-in-one hardware experience with 256GB of memory, the dual Spark cluster utilizes RDMA-connected tensor parallelism to split model layers, resulting in superior prompt processing speeds for large inputs. Conversely, the Mac Studio remains highly competitive during token generation, particularly when optimized with software like MLX. Performance metrics indicate that the Spark cluster excels in multi-user scenarios and large context handling, whereas the Mac Studio serves as a more efficient, low-setup workstation for individual developers. Both configurations demand significant power and cooling, with the Spark cluster providing higher throughput for small teams at the cost of increased setup complexity.