4 ms·

I think the average BEEFY desktop PC uses 300 to 600 W in practice (idle or full load). Let's call it 400 W. 1 kg is 2 lbs. Also, an iPhone 5 is 0.112 kg. If

I think the average BEEFY desktop PC uses 300 to 600 W in practice (idle or full load). Let's call it 400 W. 1 kg is 2 lbs. Also, an iPhone 5 is 0.112 kg. If 400 Wh/kg is the best lithium will take us, then we'll never have iPhone 5-sized or weighted devices capable of the same power as a desktop PC, and if we did they'd need to have a battery weighing 1 kg to be capable of it for even one hour. So the mobile and desktop ecosystems will be forever apart. That's sad. Also, what kind of mileage does 400 Wh/kg get you for artificial hearts? (It may be good; I don't know; but, whatever it is, you'd probably like it to be better if you had one.)

dredmorbius 8y ago
"Average" varies greatly, but 20-100W is far more typical at idle. https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/5600/how-much-power-does-an-idle-pc-use https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/5600/how-...
iamgopal 8y ago
I could argue that more efficient energy storage and processor will make it reality, but then, same logic can also be applied to desktop computing. So ultimate argument becomes, bigger machine will have more power than smaller machine. Ok. Right.
Terretta 8y ago
> the average BEEFY desktop PC uses 300 to 600 W in practice ... an iPhone 5 is 0.112 kg ... if 400 Wh/kg is the best lithium will take us, then we'll never have iPhone 5-sized or weighted devices capable of the same power as a desktop PC ... Except that Apple’s A12 is already matching up against Skylake, meaning the iPhone/iPad is currently beating Intel desktops still widely in use. The gap is not so large. https://www.anandtech.com/show/12694/assessing-cavium-thunderx2-arm-server-reality/7 https://www.anandtech.com/show/12694/assessing-cavium-thunde...
- bscphil 8y ago
  This seems hasty to me... my eight year old laptop processor gets a 7500 on the Geekbench 4 benchmark. According to the first source I found [1], the A12 only gets an 11000. Surely modern components beat my old laptop processor by a huge margin... Even the popular old i7-6700 which came out in 2015 gets a 15000 on the same test. Obviously you have to factor in power use and other requirements, but I would be shocked if anyone with the data to back it up is seriously considering replacing desktop components with something like the A12. (I admit I want this to happen as much as anyone - I would love to see a workstation class PC with 4x ARM processors, for example. I just don't see it being quite economical yet.) [1] https://www.igen.fr/iphone/2018/07/premier-benchmark-dun-mysterieux-iphone-2018-dote-de-4-go-de-ram-104545 https://www.igen.fr/iphone/2018/07/premier-benchmark-dun-mys...
  - Terretta 8y ago
    “Apple’s CPU have gotten so performant now, that we’re just margins off the best desktop CPUs; it will be interesting to see how the coming years evolve, and what this means for Apple’s non-mobile products.“ “What is quite astonishing, is just how close Apple’s A11 and A12 are to current desktop CPUs. I haven’t had the opportunity to run things in a more comparable manner, but taking our server editor, Johan De Gelas’ recent figures from earlier this summer, we see that the A12 outperforms a moderately-clocked Skylake CPU in single-threaded performance. Of course there’s compiler considerations and various frequency concerns to take into account, but still we’re now talking about very small margins until Apple’s mobile SoCs outperform the fastest desktop CPUs in terms of ST performance. It will be interesting to get more accurate figures on this topic later on in the coming months.” https://www.anandtech.com/show/13392/the-iphone-xs-xs-max-review-unveiling-the-silicon-secrets/4 https://www.anandtech.com/show/13392/the-iphone-xs-xs-max-re...
laurencerowe 8y ago
A mains powered a 400W iPhone 5 sized device seems impractical from a heat dissipation standpoint.
- hopler 8y ago
  Heat is a by product of design flaws.
  - laurencerowe 8y ago
    All power ends up as heat. If a device consumes 400W of power it is going to put out 400W of heat in some form or other. Fix the design flaw so it puts out less heat and it will consume less power and no longer be a 400W device.
- cimmanom 8y ago
  Now that’s an interesting thought. Are manufacturers turning to phablets because they can’t work out the heat dissipation engineering for smaller devices as much as because of demand?
imtringued 8y ago
Why do you need sustained desktop level performance for your phone? Anyone who cares about graphics will use a console or PC anyway. Then there is the heat problem. You don't want to hold a 600C hot phone in your hand anyway.
- umeshunni 8y ago
  Portable VR headsets one application of a powerful GPU in a small form factor.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
hopler 8y ago
Why is it sad? Would it be happy if desktops were slower?

dredmorbius 8y ago

"Average" varies greatly, but 20-100W is far more typical at idle. https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/5600/how-much-power-does-an-idle-pc-use https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/5600/how-...

iamgopal 8y ago

I could argue that more efficient energy storage and processor will make it reality, but then, same logic can also be applied to desktop computing. So ultimate argument becomes, bigger machine will have more power than smaller machine. Ok. Right.

Terretta 8y ago

> the average BEEFY desktop PC uses 300 to 600 W in practice ... an iPhone 5 is 0.112 kg ... if 400 Wh/kg is the best lithium will take us, then we'll never have iPhone 5-sized or weighted devices capable of the same power as a desktop PC ... Except that Apple’s A12 is already matching up against Skylake, meaning the iPhone/iPad is currently beating Intel desktops still widely in use. The gap is not so large. https://www.anandtech.com/show/12694/assessing-cavium-thunderx2-arm-server-reality/7 https://www.anandtech.com/show/12694/assessing-cavium-thunde...

bscphil 8y ago
This seems hasty to me... my eight year old laptop processor gets a 7500 on the Geekbench 4 benchmark. According to the first source I found [1], the A12 only gets an 11000. Surely modern components beat my old laptop processor by a huge margin... Even the popular old i7-6700 which came out in 2015 gets a 15000 on the same test. Obviously you have to factor in power use and other requirements, but I would be shocked if anyone with the data to back it up is seriously considering replacing desktop components with something like the A12. (I admit I want this to happen as much as anyone - I would love to see a workstation class PC with 4x ARM processors, for example. I just don't see it being quite economical yet.) [1] https://www.igen.fr/iphone/2018/07/premier-benchmark-dun-mysterieux-iphone-2018-dote-de-4-go-de-ram-104545 https://www.igen.fr/iphone/2018/07/premier-benchmark-dun-mys...
- Terretta 8y ago
  “Apple’s CPU have gotten so performant now, that we’re just margins off the best desktop CPUs; it will be interesting to see how the coming years evolve, and what this means for Apple’s non-mobile products.“ “What is quite astonishing, is just how close Apple’s A11 and A12 are to current desktop CPUs. I haven’t had the opportunity to run things in a more comparable manner, but taking our server editor, Johan De Gelas’ recent figures from earlier this summer, we see that the A12 outperforms a moderately-clocked Skylake CPU in single-threaded performance. Of course there’s compiler considerations and various frequency concerns to take into account, but still we’re now talking about very small margins until Apple’s mobile SoCs outperform the fastest desktop CPUs in terms of ST performance. It will be interesting to get more accurate figures on this topic later on in the coming months.” https://www.anandtech.com/show/13392/the-iphone-xs-xs-max-review-unveiling-the-silicon-secrets/4 https://www.anandtech.com/show/13392/the-iphone-xs-xs-max-re...

laurencerowe 8y ago

A mains powered a 400W iPhone 5 sized device seems impractical from a heat dissipation standpoint.

hopler 8y ago
Heat is a by product of design flaws.
- laurencerowe 8y ago
  All power ends up as heat. If a device consumes 400W of power it is going to put out 400W of heat in some form or other. Fix the design flaw so it puts out less heat and it will consume less power and no longer be a 400W device.
cimmanom 8y ago
Now that’s an interesting thought. Are manufacturers turning to phablets because they can’t work out the heat dissipation engineering for smaller devices as much as because of demand?

imtringued 8y ago

Why do you need sustained desktop level performance for your phone? Anyone who cares about graphics will use a console or PC anyway. Then there is the heat problem. You don't want to hold a 600C hot phone in your hand anyway.

umeshunni 8y ago
Portable VR headsets one application of a powerful GPU in a small form factor.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

hopler 8y ago

Why is it sad? Would it be happy if desktops were slower?