Qwen 3.6 Quality Drives Hardware Discussion — M5 Max 128GB Demand as Local Models Approach Cloud Quality
r/LocalLLaMA·low signal
A 76-upvote post on r/LocalLLaMA asking whether to upgrade to a 128GB M5 Max generated 113 comments — a 1.49 comment-to-score ratio, the highest in today's dataset. The discussion reflects a practitioner tipping point: local model quality is now close enough to cloud APIs that builders are making $4,000+ hardware investments to run models locally, shifting the cost calculus from API bills to capital expenditure.