2 ms·
People forget that it is not just the processor that consumes power. The reason the new MacBooks are so efficient is not just because they are ARM-based, it is
by deng 3y ago
People forget that it is not just the processor that consumes power. The reason the new MacBooks are so efficient is not just because they are ARM-based, it is also because they have incredibly energy efficient screens, WiFi, RAM, SSDs, etc. They can achieve this through their sophisticated manufacturing process, with highly integrated components directly soldered onto the board, a fact that is widely (and correctly) criticized for making repairs and expansion nigh impossible, but it is also true that this is much more power efficient than what you can achieve with a more modular design.
I have a Thinkpad L14 AMD, it consumes well below 10W for casual browsing/reading mails under Linux. I would wager that maybe 1/3 of that is consumed by the CPU. So even if you had a CPU with 0W consumption, I would just increase my battery life by a third, at least for that kind of usage.
- LoganDark 3y agoIs it really that hard to design sockets that don't waste such a significant amount of energy? Honest question. Do you really save so much by soldering something without any type of ribbon, socket, or other removable connector in between?
- deng 3y agoFor RAM, yes. Soldering it down right next to the CPU allows for lower voltages and faster bus speeds. For SSDs, it's more difficult. It surely makes no difference for standard PCIe, there's really no excuse to solder that one to the board. I'm actually not sure how exactly SSDs work in a MacBook M1/M2. I think it's plain NAND storage soldered directly onto the board, with the controller in the M1/M2. I have no idea about power savings here, but it sure is fast...
- LoganDark 3y agoFor RAM I think even the trace length on the motherboard matters but this is just a reason for why the sockets are usually near the CPU, not a reason why you would have to eschew sockets altogether.
- rsynnott 3y agoI'm drawing a blank on what it was called now, but way back in the day, in response to the Intel Apple laptops having far better battery life than apparently equivalent Wintel machines, Intel launched a programme to improve laptop platforms. IIRC, at the time, some laptops had up to about 10W worth of inefficient/non-essential (or completely unusable; controllers for parallel ports but no actual parallel ports for instance) chippery on their motherboards. I'd assume all the low-hanging fruit is _long_ gone there, though.
- nsonha 3y ago> Do you really save so much yes? That's the entire reason why SoC exists.
- dtx1 3y agoTo be fair, Apples anti repair bullshit is not just soldered components. I'd buy them if it were just that. It's their refusal to release necessary software and tools to allow for repair, their design that is unnecessarily hard to open and repair (there is 0 reason to have any glue in a notebook ever) and them fucking over anyone in their supply chain making it impossible to even buy replacement components. They do this so they can quote you outrageous repair costs so you buy a new device instead