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HN's obsession for power per watt is hilarious. Just because you can push out X TFlops at 20W does not mean you can push out 5X TFlops at 100W. It doesn't work

HN's obsession for power per watt is hilarious. Just because you can push out X TFlops at 20W does not mean you can push out 5X TFlops at 100W. It doesn't work this way. Despite my disappointment in Intel in the past years, I can only be happy about them pushing PCIE5 and DDR5. This confirms my next PC upgrade, although likely on a future Ryzen will be a spicy one.

jeffbee 5y ago
You can buy an Apple Silicon machine with DDR5 right now, if you are waiting for that.
- ohgodplsno 5y ago
  With soldered on, unreplaceable, unupgradeable LPDDR5, which is not DDR5. There's massive differences in the specs. I could have bought SoCs way before Apple decided it was a perfect way to get people to have to buy brand new hardware every time. They're not new technology.
  - jeffbee 5y ago
    LPDDR is soldered down because it's faster that way. There is no such thing as LPDDR on a stick. All 11th-generation Intel parts with LPDDR are also soldered on, because that's the only way to build them. I guarantee you that all Alder Lake mobile designs will have soldered RAM.
    - ohgodplsno 5y ago
      Your original comment is false, as Apple's M1 uses LPDDR5, something that has about half the clock rate and transfer rate of current DDR4. It is not DDR5 as is commonly expected when talking about DDR5, and is merely Apple's marketing Kool-aid. Additionally, Tiger Lake is merely LPDDR-compatible, not forced. You can have a Tiger Lake with regular DDR, and upgrades are easy to do. So, once again, _some_ Alder Lake designs will have soldered LPDDR5, which is low grade DDR4. This is still not DDR5.
      - jeffbee 5y ago
        You are seriously confused. The LPDDR4X is faster, not slower, than DDR4. You can equip Tiger Lake with DDR4, but it sucks, which is why the Framework laptop has worse performance and less battery life than all of its competitors.
        ohgodplsno 5y ago
        Very nice goalpost moving, but still wrong. Specs wise, LPDDR4X would be indeed, able to beat out an average DDR4-2800 under certain circumstances. Those circumstances are quad channel (that the M1 does not have) and 3733 MHz (which the M1 does have). That of course goes out the window if you spec some DDR4-3200 and quad channel it too, which will blow LPDDR4X out of the water. And of course, once again, you make this a laptop thing when the original post is about people believing the M1/M2 would scale linearly with power usage and be a strong contender to desktop CPUs. So, no, there's no DDR5 in the M1, its LPDDR4X is not faster than DDR4, and please stop trying to force feed me the Apple kool aid, this has never been about battery life.
- kcb 5y ago
  LPDDR5 is not the same standard as DDR5. It is also not just a lower power version of DDR5.
zimpenfish 5y ago
> Just because you can push out X TFlops at 20W does not mean you can push out 5X TFlops at 100W. But it does mean you can push out X TFlops at 20W for 5x longer given the same battery than you can at 100W, no?
- ohgodplsno 5y ago
  For a laptop, sure, but that's not what's interesting me in a desktop, which is what people are jerking themselves off over with the potential of the M1 and M2. For many workloads, power consumption isn't an issue. I want my CPU to draw 150W and burn as hard as possible to make my build finish as fast as possible.
  - mdp2021 5y ago
    The State of California last summer sent out news they were considering banning or restricting the sales of desktop computer intended for gaming, out of power consumption considerations. And there is an eletric power crises in many areas of the world currently. Economy of consumption remains a "hot" topic.
    - jeffbee 5y ago
      Please, do not get your news from Reason magazine. California Title 20 efficiency code for appliances includes formulas for how much energy a computer may consume in a year. They don't ban gaming systems or any other system. I actually really appreciate how these regulations are written because they favor computers that do more with their energy input, since they allow a larger energy budget for powerful computers, scaling up based on system memory, storage, and bandwidth. https://energycodeace.com/site/custom/public/reference-ace-t20/index.html#!Documents/section16053statestandardsfornonfederallyregulatedappliances.htm#vcomputerscomputermonitorstelevisionssignagedisplaysandconsumera5.htm https://energycodeace.com/site/custom/public/reference-ace-t...
    - ohgodplsno 5y ago
      Ah, yes, the evil gaming PCs with their 650-800W power supplies must be banned. I don't see California banning keeping neon signs on at night when buildings and shops are closed. Their threat is pure posturing and pretending that the problem lies on individuals when the most egregious power wastes are done in companies.

jeffbee 5y ago

You can buy an Apple Silicon machine with DDR5 right now, if you are waiting for that.

ohgodplsno 5y ago
With soldered on, unreplaceable, unupgradeable LPDDR5, which is not DDR5. There's massive differences in the specs. I could have bought SoCs way before Apple decided it was a perfect way to get people to have to buy brand new hardware every time. They're not new technology.
- jeffbee 5y ago
  LPDDR is soldered down because it's faster that way. There is no such thing as LPDDR on a stick. All 11th-generation Intel parts with LPDDR are also soldered on, because that's the only way to build them. I guarantee you that all Alder Lake mobile designs will have soldered RAM.
  - ohgodplsno 5y ago
    Your original comment is false, as Apple's M1 uses LPDDR5, something that has about half the clock rate and transfer rate of current DDR4. It is not DDR5 as is commonly expected when talking about DDR5, and is merely Apple's marketing Kool-aid. Additionally, Tiger Lake is merely LPDDR-compatible, not forced. You can have a Tiger Lake with regular DDR, and upgrades are easy to do. So, once again, _some_ Alder Lake designs will have soldered LPDDR5, which is low grade DDR4. This is still not DDR5.
    - jeffbee 5y ago
      You are seriously confused. The LPDDR4X is faster, not slower, than DDR4. You can equip Tiger Lake with DDR4, but it sucks, which is why the Framework laptop has worse performance and less battery life than all of its competitors.
      - ohgodplsno 5y ago
        Very nice goalpost moving, but still wrong. Specs wise, LPDDR4X would be indeed, able to beat out an average DDR4-2800 under certain circumstances. Those circumstances are quad channel (that the M1 does not have) and 3733 MHz (which the M1 does have). That of course goes out the window if you spec some DDR4-3200 and quad channel it too, which will blow LPDDR4X out of the water. And of course, once again, you make this a laptop thing when the original post is about people believing the M1/M2 would scale linearly with power usage and be a strong contender to desktop CPUs. So, no, there's no DDR5 in the M1, its LPDDR4X is not faster than DDR4, and please stop trying to force feed me the Apple kool aid, this has never been about battery life.
kcb 5y ago
LPDDR5 is not the same standard as DDR5. It is also not just a lower power version of DDR5.

zimpenfish 5y ago

> Just because you can push out X TFlops at 20W does not mean you can push out 5X TFlops at 100W. But it does mean you can push out X TFlops at 20W for 5x longer given the same battery than you can at 100W, no?

ohgodplsno 5y ago
For a laptop, sure, but that's not what's interesting me in a desktop, which is what people are jerking themselves off over with the potential of the M1 and M2. For many workloads, power consumption isn't an issue. I want my CPU to draw 150W and burn as hard as possible to make my build finish as fast as possible.
- mdp2021 5y ago
  The State of California last summer sent out news they were considering banning or restricting the sales of desktop computer intended for gaming, out of power consumption considerations. And there is an eletric power crises in many areas of the world currently. Economy of consumption remains a "hot" topic.
  - jeffbee 5y ago
    Please, do not get your news from Reason magazine. California Title 20 efficiency code for appliances includes formulas for how much energy a computer may consume in a year. They don't ban gaming systems or any other system. I actually really appreciate how these regulations are written because they favor computers that do more with their energy input, since they allow a larger energy budget for powerful computers, scaling up based on system memory, storage, and bandwidth. https://energycodeace.com/site/custom/public/reference-ace-t20/index.html#!Documents/section16053statestandardsfornonfederallyregulatedappliances.htm#vcomputerscomputermonitorstelevisionssignagedisplaysandconsumera5.htm https://energycodeace.com/site/custom/public/reference-ace-t...
  - ohgodplsno 5y ago
    Ah, yes, the evil gaming PCs with their 650-800W power supplies must be banned. I don't see California banning keeping neon signs on at night when buildings and shops are closed. Their threat is pure posturing and pretending that the problem lies on individuals when the most egregious power wastes are done in companies.