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It’s funny because I “perform complex simulations and handle massive data sets” but no laptop (or even desktop) is capable of handling them. I normally need to

It’s funny because I “perform complex simulations and handle massive data sets” but no laptop (or even desktop) is capable of handling them. I normally need to SSH to some cluster with thousands of CPU cores and terabytes of RAM. I’m actually kind of curious who the target user is for a high performance laptop nowadays. Video editors? What kinds of tasks require more performance than a standard laptop but less than a desktop? I currently have a 2012 MBP Retina, but am not sure if I want my next laptop to be another MBP or just the regular MacBook. I really like the 15” screen and would have a hard time giving that up. I wish they had a regular MacBook with a high quality screen, battery, and keyboard and not much else.

walshemj 8y ago
I suspect that a ryzen+ or even eypc+ when its out would be good or initial investigations on the desk top and as an interface to a bigger hpc cluster when needed.
cityhall 8y ago
I can get a much better idea how my ML models will behave at scale if I prototype on my 16GB MBP than if I only had whatever ram is leftover from 8GB after Chrome and everything use up most of it. It's no match for server GPUs but I can run multiple Jupyter notebooks with decent size datasets loaded and not have to think about it.
ericabiz 8y ago
> What kinds of tasks require more performance than a standard laptop but less than a desktop? I suppose it depends on the desktop! I just moved from a MacBook Pro to a Dell XPS 15. I thought I'd replace the MBP with the Dell, but I ended up replacing my desktop machine with the Dell, and still using the MacBook in my dining room. The XPS 15 I bought has an i9, 32GB RAM, and 1TB SSD for $1100 less than the equivalent MacBook. My workload is primarily Adobe- and WordPress-centric, with some coding and article writing thrown in for good measure. I do video editing, photo editing, and run code with zero issues. The i9 beats the pants off my Skylake i7 desktop. And it's portable! And the screen is amazing. I have it hooked up to my 5K monitor in my home office, and it's gorgeous. Since my workload is 98% Chrome, Adobe products, Microsoft products, or text editors, everything was pretty much identical from one platform to another. I turned off automatic updates on Windows 10 (I do this on my Mac too) and had no issues at all migrating over. I don't think I'll be buying a new Mac at this point.
Fomite 8y ago
I also "perform complex simulations and handle massive data sets" and often do mockup on my laptop (where power is nice) before shipping it off to the cluster, and often truck the results back to my laptop for analysis.

walshemj 8y ago

I suspect that a ryzen+ or even eypc+ when its out would be good or initial investigations on the desk top and as an interface to a bigger hpc cluster when needed.

cityhall 8y ago

I can get a much better idea how my ML models will behave at scale if I prototype on my 16GB MBP than if I only had whatever ram is leftover from 8GB after Chrome and everything use up most of it. It's no match for server GPUs but I can run multiple Jupyter notebooks with decent size datasets loaded and not have to think about it.

ericabiz 8y ago

> What kinds of tasks require more performance than a standard laptop but less than a desktop? I suppose it depends on the desktop! I just moved from a MacBook Pro to a Dell XPS 15. I thought I'd replace the MBP with the Dell, but I ended up replacing my desktop machine with the Dell, and still using the MacBook in my dining room. The XPS 15 I bought has an i9, 32GB RAM, and 1TB SSD for $1100 less than the equivalent MacBook. My workload is primarily Adobe- and WordPress-centric, with some coding and article writing thrown in for good measure. I do video editing, photo editing, and run code with zero issues. The i9 beats the pants off my Skylake i7 desktop. And it's portable! And the screen is amazing. I have it hooked up to my 5K monitor in my home office, and it's gorgeous. Since my workload is 98% Chrome, Adobe products, Microsoft products, or text editors, everything was pretty much identical from one platform to another. I turned off automatic updates on Windows 10 (I do this on my Mac too) and had no issues at all migrating over. I don't think I'll be buying a new Mac at this point.

Fomite 8y ago

I also "perform complex simulations and handle massive data sets" and often do mockup on my laptop (where power is nice) before shipping it off to the cluster, and often truck the results back to my laptop for analysis.