u/AmbitionIgniters

ok need some real talk from the local llm crowd

bought an m5 max macbook pro 48gb. now eyeing a return for the m5 pro 48gb and pocketing ~$1.5k usd

my actual usage:

•	run hermes agent  
•	mostly cloud llms tbh gpt-5.5  
•	mess around with local models in mlx/ollama  
•	qwen3.6 works pretty well but makes the fans scream  
•	not sure i could run this thing as a 24/7 always-on setup

so genuinely… what am i losing going from max 48gb to pro 48gb for local llm stuff? same ram so its just bandwidth/gpu cores right? is that gonna actually bite me if 90% of my serious work is cloud anyway

talk me into keeping it or talk me out of it