4 ms·
CPUs and GPUs to Become More Expensive After TSMC Price Hike in 2026
- mouse_ 1y agoMost consumers would do fine with like .25 Apple M1's worth of compute.
- tempest_ 1y agoMost use phones.
- jjgghhggc 1y agoI agree. Even my quad core i7 from 2011 is still fast enough for everything average consumer does. Heck, even average i5 laptop from 2015 or so is more than sufficient.
- znpy 1y agoI only partially agree. I recently got nostalgic and bought a 2nd-gen Core-i7 ThinkPad X220 from ebay (similar to what i had back in my university days). It's generally very usable util you open firefox and browse a modern website. Chrome/chromium aren't any better. The issue with old hardware is web browser and web pages, particularly web pages. Modern websites are incredible resource drains, it's unbelievable. I can easily read documentation from old-school cool websites like https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/ https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/ but anything fancier than that gets the fan wheels spinning...
- DrProtic 1y agoDoes it have the Ultrabook version of the i7?
- ndriscoll 1y agoI don't notice any issues with an i5-6600k or an n100. Both are 4c/4t and extremely snappy. The only ways to get them above like 0.5 load are CPU intensive tasks like compiling, video editing, or games. The only thing I've found I can't do is real time viewing of 200 Mbit/s 4k60 10 bit 4:2:2 h265 off my camera because it's software decoded (software can only do ~half speed).
- dangus 1y agoI disagree. I would submit that the average consumer utilizes a lot of computing power and that you might actually be using less than that as a more technical power user with more discerning tastes in applications and a viewpoint that sees the computer as more of a tool than an entertainment and lifestyle device. I would also sumbit that the person who is still using a computer from 2011 would never have bought an i7 in the first place. They’re not going to follow an upgrade path where they say “I had a core i3 in 2011 that is too slow now so I’ll replace it with something that had a 2011 i7 that I couldn’t justify purchasing at the time.” Instead they’re more likely to say “I bought this laptop 15 years ago and I’ve battered the hell out of it and I’ve been frugal and it’s time for a new one,” and when they buy that new one it will also be a very modest configuration. So the fact that a top of the line processor from 15 years ago is still serviceable is not really all that relevant. It’s going to not even be worth it on power consumption alone if you’re running it 24/7. In other words, there’s more to a chip than raw performance.
- SchemaLoad 1y agoidk about that. I had an i5 2019 macbook and that thing was so incredibly slow and hot. When the M1 came out it felt like jumping 10 years foward.
- makeitdouble 1y agoPrice of new hardware increasing will stop old hardware from deprecating as much, meaning higher prices across the board.
- unethical_ban 1y agoThis is what I don't get about laptop power consumption. I would love an x86 laptop that can operate at 5W or less, even if it isn't blazing fast. If they can squeeze more performance out of a CPU for the same power budget, why can't they make a CPU with the same capability with less power use?
- bluGill 1y agoPeople say that, but money talks and the people don't buy those.
- School-Cotton 1y agoIsn’t the Apple M series basically the best of both worlds? Extremely high performance, and extremely low power use when not making use of it.
- makeitdouble 1y ago5W for a laptop is raspberry pi territory, and we're adding a screen to it. I hope we ever get there for a 14" fully usable laptop, but that sounds bleeding edge territory at this point. The CPU alone can operate below 5W: https://www.phoronix.com/review/lunar-lake-profiles/6 https://www.phoronix.com/review/lunar-lake-profiles/6
- unethical_ban 1y agoSorry, I meant a CPU operating at that power, not the whole device. Phoronix shows the AMD CPU going toward 7w but its specs say it can only go down to 15w. How does that work?
- makeitdouble 1y agoAs I understand, same way these CPU can be overclocked, they also have leeway for underclocking below the official spec. ROG Ally like devices seem to be running their CPUs in these lower ranges, so there's a decent expectation of stability.
- 1y ago
- KPGv2 1y agoAlongside presumably more RAM that came on a laptop with an M1. Certainly more GPU than came on a laptop with an M1.
- zoeysmithe 1y agoEven the mythical "average user" uses tons of processing. Just "a few tabs" is like having several large applications open.
- devilsdata 1y agoThis could finally force the developers of cross-platform GUI and webview libraries, drunk on Moore’s Law, to sober up.
- Barrin92 1y agodecent chunk of RAM maybe but my parents are happily browsing away on decade+ old chrome books. Ordinary web browsing you can do on a potato machine from 2008. Even if you're a gamer performance on the desktop has eclipsed demand so much that you can play anything on a few years old machine. It used to be way worse in the "olden" days when only 10% of people had a system that was able to play Crysis.
- nomel 1y agoHasn't been true for about a decade. Modern browsers suspend most processor activity of background tabs, so it's mostly just memory pressure.
- drnick1 1y agoThanks, TSMC.
- dmitrygr 1y agoAbsolutely nobody stops you from forming a competing company and charging less for equally good or better results
- iwontberude 1y agoExcept for me. I am single handedly holding off all of these people from building a fab.
- Eisenstein 1y agoGreat idea. Can you lend me $10 billion?
- bluGill 1y agoI think that is a on the cheap side. Unless you are content with 1990s node sizes
- jgeada 1y agoPiddling sum in this domain, that amount won't even buy you enough for 1 production line, let alone where to put in, staff it and get all the necessary collateral to allow people to design to it. And no amount of money will get you one of ASML EUV machines any time soon as the entire production line for the next handful of years has already been spoken for.
- lillecarl 1y agoAbsolutely everything in the modern economy stops him from forming a competing company, this naive stupid market is the solution idea needs to stop being regurgitated, it's toxic to society.
- nomel 1y ago
- phkahler 1y agoThe world is probably going to be split between EUV and non-EUV lithography for a long time. I'd like to see things like the Raspberry Pi stay on the older nodes and just wring out the performance. For reference the Zen1 CPUs were on 14/12nm from GF and I believe they are still faster than the pi, so there is room for improvement from them on old nodes.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- wrigby 1y agoThat’s true, but Zen1 TDP is a lot higher than an RPi. Hitting that level of performance in a power and heat envelope that works for a Pi probably demands a smaller process node, unfortunately.
- wmf 1y agoI think it will split between TSMC (sold out forever) and Samsung/Intel (please please be our customer).
- Qem 1y ago> The world is probably going to be split between EUV and non-EUV lithography for a long time. How long before China develops indigenous EUV capability?
- phkahler 1y ago>> How long before China develops indigenous EUV capability? Oh, they absolutely will. I meant the tech world though, not the geopolitical one. Other node will also linger since there are cost differences, but EUV is going to remain a big cost step from 14/12.
- on_the_train 1y agoFun fact: only five high-NA EUV Machines have ever been delivered.
- ReptileMan 1y agoHave you checked RAM prices lately ...
- freshpots 1y agoI bought 32 GB of DDR5 RAM two weeks ago and it is $100 more already.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- whatsupdog 1y ago[flagged]
- tomhow 1y agoPlease don't post off-topic, trollish comments on HN. The guidelines ask us to avoid generic tangents. Please also try harder to observe the guidelines in all your activity on HN. Some of your comments are positive contributions, but others are unsubstantive, and drag the overall quality of HN down. Please make an effort to cut out the guidelines-breaking stuff and just post the positively-contributing comments. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45816492 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45816492 and marked it off topic.
- imbnwa 1y agoLooks like I’ll need to put that home server together sooner rather later
- amelius 1y agoYes. They should open a FabStore and make Apple pay 30% of their revenue.
- jmward01 1y agoI have been interested in city planning for a while and the idea of an 'urban growth barrier' is a key concept with massive benefits. Basically, when you limit a resource, like available land, it simplifies thinking, forces inward development and and very often the 'impossible' problems go away because creative solutions come out. Maybe the chip industry will see something similar if a barrier of 'just wait till the new smaller process hits' gets put in place.
- TylerE 1y agoThat's just delaying progress for everyone as TSMC basically doesn't have alternatives for the processes that are actually good. Definition of cutting off your nose to spite your face.
- purrcat259 1y agoA bit OT but I live on a very land constrained island with the highest population density in Europe (see Malta). There has been major increase in demand for housing and supply cannot be built fast enough to match. Its turned most of the island into a construction site so rampant that I made an online tracker for urban planning permits so folks can get ahead on knowing whats going on around them. Idk if you have any wisdom but there's no creative solutionising happening, just the rich able to buy whatever property they want causing prices to rise which is pricing out the middle class, causing a whole lot of grief and downstream issues (such as plummeting fertility rate because homes are too expensive). Is there a magic toggle we missed to unlock this creativity or am I being realistic by being skeptical that limiting important resources just leads to harsher inequality?
- IncreasePosts 1y agoMaybe Malta is just too small of a world for that magic toggle, since entrenched interests can basically just prevent the government from approving certain strategies, like building more large buildings with apartments like the Mercury Tower. But on the global stage, not even the biggest player(US) can dictate what China, India, the EU does, so if the US self-limits because of entrenched interests, that's just more juice for the squeeze for other players not aligned with the US.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- joaohaas 1y ago>post decides to use the most crusty GenAI image possible Man, what a cancer. Straight up using the bare TSMC logo here would work just fine.
- PaulKeeble 1y agoThe Nvidia 3000 series were on Samsung's process since it was quite a bit cheaper than the TSMC process at the time. Samsung has already said it intends to undercut TSMC so assuming they are fairly equivalent it doesn't seem unreasonable for consumer CPUs and GPUs to be made on their process, it gives a price advantage to anyone that makes the move.
- spacejogger 1y ago3% to 5% more expensive every year - that is similar to or less than inflation. Given their dominance, i'm genuinely curious why they don't raise it by 20% a year. Or 50%?