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Why not just SSH into a significantly more capable machine and enjoy two days between battery charges instead? (AMD just got done with their 5nm Zen 4 Computex

Why not just SSH into a significantly more capable machine and enjoy two days between battery charges instead? (AMD just got done with their 5nm Zen 4 Computex keynote right now) https://www.anandtech.com/show/17399/amd-ryzen-7000-announced-zen4-pcie5-ddr5-am5-coming-fall https://www.anandtech.com/show/17399/amd-ryzen-7000-announce...

jen729w 4y ago
Okay I'll bite. Does that machine exist? You linked to a CPU page, not a machine-with-two-day-battery-life page.
- manmal 4y ago
  I think GP meant to say that one could use a VM running on that CPU (e.g. EC2) and SSH into it with an M1 (which might provide up to 2 days of battery when used that way).
  - jen729w 4y ago
    Aaaahaaaa thank you.
bitwize 4y ago
Because you can buy an M1 Mac today. By the time this Ryzen CPU appears in a real PC you can buy, the next-gen Apple Silicon Macs will have arrived, and they will be several years ahead of this Ryzen.
- dagw 4y ago
  Also there is more to a laptop than just its CPU. Doesn't matter how great the Ryzen processor is if they can't get laptop manufacturers to put them into great laptops.
  - grw_ 4y ago
    GP is proposing using Macbook as thin client to Ryzen build server. Laptop cpu is never loaded hence 2 day battery life, performance is better on anything benefiting from significant parallelization. I use same workflow with 5950X[0], works great. [0] https://www.hetzner.com/dedicated-rootserver/ax101 https://www.hetzner.com/dedicated-rootserver/ax101
- ithkuil 4y ago
  > Because you can buy an M1 Mac today You can order one today. I'm still waiting for mine I ordered in March.
  - jzb 4y ago
    You can buy one today… if you’re willing to settle for bare minimum RAM & disk.
    - EugeneOZ 4y ago
      ...but you better don’t settle for a minimum RAM if you are buying it not just for web surfing.
      - throwaway894345 4y ago
        What’s the entry level spec for RAM? Like 8GB? That’s plenty for most things. I’d be more worried about disk.
        saagarjha 4y ago
        16. I have an M1 Mac mini under the desk that has been doing more than fine for most of my development work on 8 GB of RAM.
      - BirAdam 4y ago
        Memory management on M1 is actually quite amazing. With an entry level M1 mini, I can have a crap ton of stuff open and it doesn’t choke. I can run UTM and have Chrome and a few electron apps open, and have many terminal windows open. No sweat. For disk, I just put a 1tb NVMe in an external USBC enclosure, cuz most of my data doesn’t need crazy I/O and I feel like Apple charges too much for disk space.
        EugeneOZ 4y ago
        I own one M1 with 8Gb RAM, one with 16Gb, and one with 32 - 8Gb was enough only for basic tasks (I’m a web developer, TS + Rust). Anything non-trivial was causing swapping. Memory management is quite usual, nothing magical. The disk is faster, but it's not the reason to rely on swapping, still.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
c0npr 4y ago
Well the data will need to move with you. Not very feasible if you need the whole media library / codebase to be transported via cellular all the time. I understand the appeal when you just need terminal access tho.
- throwaway894345 4y ago
  I can’t think of a reason you’d need to pull your whole media library. Usually it’s just whatever show you want to watch. As for code, it’s typically small, and you can either pull incremental diffs a la git or you just do everything on your server so you don’t have to pull anything to your client at all.
sdevonoes 4y ago
Because then you need two machines :)
- jaimex2 4y ago
  its like when people bought two ipads to multitask XD Ah, Apple life.
  - manuelabeledo 4y ago
    When did that happen? Asking as an iPad owner.
    - Razengan 4y ago
      It doesn’t matter whether it happened or not. The comment says something some people want to hear.
  - throwaway894345 4y ago
    This isn’t an Apple thing, it’s a “laws of physics” thing. The parent is suggesting that you do your intensive computing on a computer that isn’t battery powered so as to prolong your laptop’s battery between charges. “Apple life” in this case is having two days between charges rather than a few hours.
dobin 4y ago
I SSH into a local XEON server homelab, or one of several Hetzner servers over Wireguard (which runs in a Proxmox container). Symmetrical 1gbit fiber connection helps. Only disadvantage is that it doesnt work on (long) flights. For me, MacBook Air M1 is just a "dumb terminal", with VSCode and its remove development server it doesnt matter where all the stuff is.
- xvector 4y ago
  > Only disadvantage is that it doesnt work on (long) flights. mosh?
- moonchrome 4y ago
  My only problem with this is that Apple form factors/OS choices are limited. I want a tablet dumb terminal because: - when I'm working I'm plugged into a monitor 99% of the time (with dedicated keyboard/mouse) - when I'm traveling/consuming media/couch surfing/shopping with wife - tablet is much more convenient But I can't really use iOS for work - iPad pro would be perfect otherwise.
  - f6v 4y ago
    I’ve been looking into buying Surface Pro, but the battery is somewhat disappointing. And then there’s Windows. I’ve been using it on my gaming machine and i don’t enjoy a single minute of it. But yeah, I wish there’s was a good 2 in 1 as well.
    - moonchrome 4y ago
      Yeah - using Windows 11 on my desktop for the last month or so - it's downright ridiculous what it devolved to
  - goosedragons 4y ago
    I feel like a Samsung tablet would work really well there. DeX for your desktop work with Termux and the like and Android for the rest. I know people say Android has no tablet apps and while it's definitely missing stuff like Procreate it is still good for web browsing, watching streaming services etc. And Samsung's version of Android is very good at multitasking allowing things like having 4 apps running split screen, windowed apps etc. Way better than what iOS allows.

jen729w 4y ago

Okay I'll bite. Does that machine exist? You linked to a CPU page, not a machine-with-two-day-battery-life page.

manmal 4y ago
I think GP meant to say that one could use a VM running on that CPU (e.g. EC2) and SSH into it with an M1 (which might provide up to 2 days of battery when used that way).
- jen729w 4y ago
  Aaaahaaaa thank you.

bitwize 4y ago

Because you can buy an M1 Mac today. By the time this Ryzen CPU appears in a real PC you can buy, the next-gen Apple Silicon Macs will have arrived, and they will be several years ahead of this Ryzen.

dagw 4y ago
Also there is more to a laptop than just its CPU. Doesn't matter how great the Ryzen processor is if they can't get laptop manufacturers to put them into great laptops.
- grw_ 4y ago
  GP is proposing using Macbook as thin client to Ryzen build server. Laptop cpu is never loaded hence 2 day battery life, performance is better on anything benefiting from significant parallelization. I use same workflow with 5950X[0], works great. [0] https://www.hetzner.com/dedicated-rootserver/ax101 https://www.hetzner.com/dedicated-rootserver/ax101
ithkuil 4y ago
> Because you can buy an M1 Mac today You can order one today. I'm still waiting for mine I ordered in March.
- jzb 4y ago
  You can buy one today… if you’re willing to settle for bare minimum RAM & disk.
  - EugeneOZ 4y ago
    ...but you better don’t settle for a minimum RAM if you are buying it not just for web surfing.
    - throwaway894345 4y ago
      What’s the entry level spec for RAM? Like 8GB? That’s plenty for most things. I’d be more worried about disk.
      - saagarjha 4y ago
        16. I have an M1 Mac mini under the desk that has been doing more than fine for most of my development work on 8 GB of RAM.
    - BirAdam 4y ago
      Memory management on M1 is actually quite amazing. With an entry level M1 mini, I can have a crap ton of stuff open and it doesn’t choke. I can run UTM and have Chrome and a few electron apps open, and have many terminal windows open. No sweat. For disk, I just put a 1tb NVMe in an external USBC enclosure, cuz most of my data doesn’t need crazy I/O and I feel like Apple charges too much for disk space.
      - EugeneOZ 4y ago
        I own one M1 with 8Gb RAM, one with 16Gb, and one with 32 - 8Gb was enough only for basic tasks (I’m a web developer, TS + Rust). Anything non-trivial was causing swapping. Memory management is quite usual, nothing magical. The disk is faster, but it's not the reason to rely on swapping, still.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

c0npr 4y ago

Well the data will need to move with you. Not very feasible if you need the whole media library / codebase to be transported via cellular all the time. I understand the appeal when you just need terminal access tho.

throwaway894345 4y ago
I can’t think of a reason you’d need to pull your whole media library. Usually it’s just whatever show you want to watch. As for code, it’s typically small, and you can either pull incremental diffs a la git or you just do everything on your server so you don’t have to pull anything to your client at all.

sdevonoes 4y ago

Because then you need two machines :)

jaimex2 4y ago
its like when people bought two ipads to multitask XD Ah, Apple life.
- manuelabeledo 4y ago
  When did that happen? Asking as an iPad owner.
  - Razengan 4y ago
    It doesn’t matter whether it happened or not. The comment says something some people want to hear.
- throwaway894345 4y ago
  This isn’t an Apple thing, it’s a “laws of physics” thing. The parent is suggesting that you do your intensive computing on a computer that isn’t battery powered so as to prolong your laptop’s battery between charges. “Apple life” in this case is having two days between charges rather than a few hours.

dobin 4y ago

I SSH into a local XEON server homelab, or one of several Hetzner servers over Wireguard (which runs in a Proxmox container). Symmetrical 1gbit fiber connection helps. Only disadvantage is that it doesnt work on (long) flights. For me, MacBook Air M1 is just a "dumb terminal", with VSCode and its remove development server it doesnt matter where all the stuff is.

xvector 4y ago
> Only disadvantage is that it doesnt work on (long) flights. mosh?
moonchrome 4y ago
My only problem with this is that Apple form factors/OS choices are limited. I want a tablet dumb terminal because: - when I'm working I'm plugged into a monitor 99% of the time (with dedicated keyboard/mouse) - when I'm traveling/consuming media/couch surfing/shopping with wife - tablet is much more convenient But I can't really use iOS for work - iPad pro would be perfect otherwise.
- f6v 4y ago
  I’ve been looking into buying Surface Pro, but the battery is somewhat disappointing. And then there’s Windows. I’ve been using it on my gaming machine and i don’t enjoy a single minute of it. But yeah, I wish there’s was a good 2 in 1 as well.
  - moonchrome 4y ago
    Yeah - using Windows 11 on my desktop for the last month or so - it's downright ridiculous what it devolved to
- goosedragons 4y ago
  I feel like a Samsung tablet would work really well there. DeX for your desktop work with Termux and the like and Android for the rest. I know people say Android has no tablet apps and while it's definitely missing stuff like Procreate it is still good for web browsing, watching streaming services etc. And Samsung's version of Android is very good at multitasking allowing things like having 4 apps running split screen, windowed apps etc. Way better than what iOS allows.