4 ms·

Define "extremely". You get maybe a factor 2 or so, not 10 or 100. Is that nicer? Yes, sure. Is it necessary? No, older stuff is perfectly sufficient for most p

Define "extremely". You get maybe a factor 2 or so, not 10 or 100. Is that nicer? Yes, sure. Is it necessary? No, older stuff is perfectly sufficient for most people. Also, it is "if you need that power and need it with laptop formfactor". Again, impressive, but desktops/servers work just as well for most people.

dijit 5y ago
2011 desktop CPUs will perform about half as well as a modern laptop one. I don’t even think Sandybridge (Intel 2011) CPUs support h264 decode- a pretty common requirement these days for zoom, slack, teams and video streaming sites such as YouTube.
- diffeomorphism 5y ago
  > about half Exactly, no 100x, no 10x, just half. That is very noticeable but "extreme" sounds like much more. > I don’t even think Sandybridge (Intel 2011) CPUs support h264 decode- Correct, but unrelated to CPU speed and instead an additional hardware component. That is a fair argument, just like missing suitable HDMI standards, usb c, etc.. However, again that is not about speed but features.
- true_religion 5y ago
  Yes… only half as well as modern laptop. Back on the era of Moore’s law, a new machine would be 32x as fast as a ten year old model. That was a real difference. But in 2021, people still buy laptops 1/2 as slow as other models to do the same work. Heck people go out of their way to buy iPad pros which are half as slow as comparable laptops. Considering that, I think a ten year old machine is pretty competitive as an existing choice.
  - dijit 5y ago
    > iPad pros which are half as slow as comparable laptops. Uh, what? iPads are using comparable CPUs to the M1 (some even use the M1) and are some of the fastest CPUs for rendering JavaScript on the planet. I think you’re right that people buy slow laptops. But I think that often comes from a place of technical illiteracy and willingness to spend. Put simply: they can’t often comprehend the true value of a faster system and opt to be more financially conservative. Which I fully understand.
    - true_religion 5y ago
      IPad Pro 2021: 1118 on geekbench[1] priced at @ 2,199.00 fully specced at the 12.9 inch model with keyboard. Macbook Air 2020: 1733 on geekbench[2]. Priced @ about 1,849.00 fully speced for 13-inch model. That's what I mean by comparable tablets are more expensive than laptops. You have to pay a lot more because it has a dual form factor (like the Microsoft Surfacebooks). [1]https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/10527696 https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/10527696 [2]https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/10527696 https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/10527696
- formerly_proven 5y ago
  Sandy Bridges actually do have hardware decoding, but this isn't really a CPU feature, since it's a separate accelerator more akin to an integrated GPU. FWIW sites like Youtube seem to prefer the most bandwidth-efficient codec regardless of whether hardware decoding is available.
- qball 5y ago
  >2011 desktop CPUs will perform about half as well as a modern laptop one. Maybe, but the fat client-thin client pendulum has swung back in favor of thin clients to the point that CPU performance is generally irrelevant (it kind of has to be, since most people browse the Web with their phones). As for games, provided you throw enough GPU at the problem acceptable performance is still absolutely achievable, but that's not new either. >a pretty common requirement these days for zoom, slack, teams and video streaming sites such as YouTube It really isn't: from experience the hard line for acceptable performance is "anything first-gen Core iX (Nehalem) or later"- Core 2 systems are legitimately too old for things like 4K video playback, however. The limiting factor on older machines like that is ultimately RAM (because Electron), but provided you've maxed out a system with 16GB+ and an SSD there's no real performance difference between a first-gen Core system and an 11th-gen Core system for all thin client (read: web) applications. That said, it's also worth noting that the average laptop really took a dive in speed with Haswell and didn't start getting the 10% year-over-year improvements again until Skylake because ultra-low-voltage processors became the norm after that time and set the average laptop about 4 years back in speed compared to their standard-voltage counterparts: those laptops genuinely might not be fast enough now, but the standard-voltage ones absolutely are.
volta83 5y ago
Saying a 10 year old laptop is 2x or 4x slower than a new laptop is just a tiny part of the big picture. I would say that for a light laptop user, the main reasons to upgrade are: - displays: make a big difference for watching youtube, reading, etc. You can't really compare a 120 Hz XDR retina display with a 10 year old display. - webcam: makes a big difference when video conferencing with family, etc. - battery life: makes a big difference if you are on the go a lot. My 10 year old laptop had new something like 4 hours battery life. Any new laptop has more than 15h, some over 20h. - fanless: silent laptops that don't overheat are nice, nicer to have on your lap, etc. - accelerators: some zoom and teams backgrounds use AI a lot, and perform very poorly on old laptops without AI accelerators. Same for webcams. If you talk about perf, that's obviously workload dependent, but having 4x more cores, that are 2-4x faster each, can make a big difference. I/O, encryption, etc. has improved quite a bit, which can make a difference if you deal with big files. Still, you can get most of this new stuff for 1000$ in a macbook air with M1. Seems like a no brainer for light users that _need_ or _want_ to upgrade. If you don't want to upgrade, that's ok, but saying that you are only missing 2x better performance is misleading. You are missing a lot more stuff.
- kuschku 5y ago
  But that's the thing. You can upgrade all that. I’ve got a T470 with a brand new 400nits 100% sRGB and like 80% AdobeRGB screen. You can even get 4K screens with awesome quality for the T4xx laptops with 40-pin eDP. With 17h battery life even on performance mode. With a new, 1080p webcam. With 32GB of DDR4-2400 RAM With 2TB NVMe Storage. With 95Wh replaceable batteries, of which I can still get brand new original parts and which I can replace while using the laptop. for a total below 500$. If I'd upgrade the top-of-the-line T480 accordingly, I'd still be below 800$ and performance that's not that far off anymore.

dijit 5y ago

2011 desktop CPUs will perform about half as well as a modern laptop one. I don’t even think Sandybridge (Intel 2011) CPUs support h264 decode- a pretty common requirement these days for zoom, slack, teams and video streaming sites such as YouTube.

diffeomorphism 5y ago
> about half Exactly, no 100x, no 10x, just half. That is very noticeable but "extreme" sounds like much more. > I don’t even think Sandybridge (Intel 2011) CPUs support h264 decode- Correct, but unrelated to CPU speed and instead an additional hardware component. That is a fair argument, just like missing suitable HDMI standards, usb c, etc.. However, again that is not about speed but features.
true_religion 5y ago
Yes… only half as well as modern laptop. Back on the era of Moore’s law, a new machine would be 32x as fast as a ten year old model. That was a real difference. But in 2021, people still buy laptops 1/2 as slow as other models to do the same work. Heck people go out of their way to buy iPad pros which are half as slow as comparable laptops. Considering that, I think a ten year old machine is pretty competitive as an existing choice.
- dijit 5y ago
  > iPad pros which are half as slow as comparable laptops. Uh, what? iPads are using comparable CPUs to the M1 (some even use the M1) and are some of the fastest CPUs for rendering JavaScript on the planet. I think you’re right that people buy slow laptops. But I think that often comes from a place of technical illiteracy and willingness to spend. Put simply: they can’t often comprehend the true value of a faster system and opt to be more financially conservative. Which I fully understand.
  - true_religion 5y ago
    IPad Pro 2021: 1118 on geekbench[1] priced at @ 2,199.00 fully specced at the 12.9 inch model with keyboard. Macbook Air 2020: 1733 on geekbench[2]. Priced @ about 1,849.00 fully speced for 13-inch model. That's what I mean by comparable tablets are more expensive than laptops. You have to pay a lot more because it has a dual form factor (like the Microsoft Surfacebooks). [1]https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/10527696 https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/10527696 [2]https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/10527696 https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/10527696
formerly_proven 5y ago
Sandy Bridges actually do have hardware decoding, but this isn't really a CPU feature, since it's a separate accelerator more akin to an integrated GPU. FWIW sites like Youtube seem to prefer the most bandwidth-efficient codec regardless of whether hardware decoding is available.
qball 5y ago
>2011 desktop CPUs will perform about half as well as a modern laptop one. Maybe, but the fat client-thin client pendulum has swung back in favor of thin clients to the point that CPU performance is generally irrelevant (it kind of has to be, since most people browse the Web with their phones). As for games, provided you throw enough GPU at the problem acceptable performance is still absolutely achievable, but that's not new either. >a pretty common requirement these days for zoom, slack, teams and video streaming sites such as YouTube It really isn't: from experience the hard line for acceptable performance is "anything first-gen Core iX (Nehalem) or later"- Core 2 systems are legitimately too old for things like 4K video playback, however. The limiting factor on older machines like that is ultimately RAM (because Electron), but provided you've maxed out a system with 16GB+ and an SSD there's no real performance difference between a first-gen Core system and an 11th-gen Core system for all thin client (read: web) applications. That said, it's also worth noting that the average laptop really took a dive in speed with Haswell and didn't start getting the 10% year-over-year improvements again until Skylake because ultra-low-voltage processors became the norm after that time and set the average laptop about 4 years back in speed compared to their standard-voltage counterparts: those laptops genuinely might not be fast enough now, but the standard-voltage ones absolutely are.

volta83 5y ago

Saying a 10 year old laptop is 2x or 4x slower than a new laptop is just a tiny part of the big picture. I would say that for a light laptop user, the main reasons to upgrade are: - displays: make a big difference for watching youtube, reading, etc. You can't really compare a 120 Hz XDR retina display with a 10 year old display. - webcam: makes a big difference when video conferencing with family, etc. - battery life: makes a big difference if you are on the go a lot. My 10 year old laptop had new something like 4 hours battery life. Any new laptop has more than 15h, some over 20h. - fanless: silent laptops that don't overheat are nice, nicer to have on your lap, etc. - accelerators: some zoom and teams backgrounds use AI a lot, and perform very poorly on old laptops without AI accelerators. Same for webcams. If you talk about perf, that's obviously workload dependent, but having 4x more cores, that are 2-4x faster each, can make a big difference. I/O, encryption, etc. has improved quite a bit, which can make a difference if you deal with big files. Still, you can get most of this new stuff for 1000$ in a macbook air with M1. Seems like a no brainer for light users that _need_ or _want_ to upgrade. If you don't want to upgrade, that's ok, but saying that you are only missing 2x better performance is misleading. You are missing a lot more stuff.

kuschku 5y ago
But that's the thing. You can upgrade all that. I’ve got a T470 with a brand new 400nits 100% sRGB and like 80% AdobeRGB screen. You can even get 4K screens with awesome quality for the T4xx laptops with 40-pin eDP. With 17h battery life even on performance mode. With a new, 1080p webcam. With 32GB of DDR4-2400 RAM With 2TB NVMe Storage. With 95Wh replaceable batteries, of which I can still get brand new original parts and which I can replace while using the laptop. for a total below 500$. If I'd upgrade the top-of-the-line T480 accordingly, I'd still be below 800$ and performance that's not that far off anymore.