4 ms·
Most consumers would do fine with like .25 Apple M1's worth of compute.
by mouse_ 11mo ago
Most consumers would do fine with like .25 Apple M1's worth of compute.
- tempest_ 11mo agoMost use phones.
- jjgghhggc 11mo 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 11mo 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 11mo agoDoes it have the Ultrabook version of the i7?
- ndriscoll 11mo 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 11mo 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 11mo 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 11mo agoPrice of new hardware increasing will stop old hardware from deprecating as much, meaning higher prices across the board.
- unethical_ban 11mo 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 11mo agoPeople say that, but money talks and the people don't buy those.
- School-Cotton 11mo 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 11mo 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 11mo 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 11mo 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.
- 11mo ago
- KPGv2 11mo agoAlongside presumably more RAM that came on a laptop with an M1. Certainly more GPU than came on a laptop with an M1.
- zoeysmithe 11mo agoEven the mythical "average user" uses tons of processing. Just "a few tabs" is like having several large applications open.
- devilsdata 11mo agoThis could finally force the developers of cross-platform GUI and webview libraries, drunk on Moore’s Law, to sober up.
- Barrin92 11mo 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 11mo agoHasn't been true for about a decade. Modern browsers suspend most processor activity of background tabs, so it's mostly just memory pressure.