It’s hot and also LOUD and runs the battery down quick.

But I’m having a lot of luck just running things when I’m away from the computer and can leave it plugged in.

It starts going weird (unreliable and slow) with context over 80k so you have to pick tasks one at a time and baby sit a lot more than Claude. But it really is very capable and feels like there’s an intelligence there to talk to. Maybe gpt-4 level clever?

I have an m5 max 64gb and I think anything slower would be quite painful.

I tested Gemma 4 a couple months ago and yes it ramps the fans to max. Definitely a thing that should only be done on wall power.

I don't have the hardware but a often mentioned advice is to put your mac into energy saving mode - it still will work, a bit slower, but stays cool.

Mineral oil bath?