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If You Need a Laptop, Buy It Now
- fortran77 7mo agoShare link: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/2026/03/laptop-electronics-ram-ai-tax/686628/?gift=-Cg_YfCqAEDBFSjg_lEgrUNnD31I6IdSvOOWE4U_Jts&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/2026/03/laptop-electr...
- vibe42 7mo agoHigher-end gaming laptops are still decently priced and work well for local AI inference. And Linux runs better than ever on them; I'm running debian 13 with almost no driver issues. For $2k you can get 32 GB DDR5 RAM and 16 GB fast VRAM. Bump the RAM to 64 GB and you're still below $3k.
- solstice 7mo agoWhat models or classes of models would I be able to run on that hardware? I've asked myself that question while looking at some of the models on this: site https://laptopparts4less.frl/index.php?route=common/home https://laptopparts4less.frl/index.php?route=common/home
- vibe42 7mo agoWith 16 GB VRAM one can run a decent quant (Q4-Q8) of newer, smaller dense models. This leaves room for e.g. 32-256k context size. This might not be enough to chew through a large code base but for smaller projects it can easily fit enough if not all of the code base to drive a good coding agent. I don't recommend specific models or model providers due to how much hype and BS there is around benchmarks etc. Easiest is to check the latest generation of open models and look for a dense-type where a decent quant fits within the VRAM. Some models run fast enough that some of the weights can spill over from VRAM to RAM while maintaining a usable prompt/token gen speed.
- solstice 7mo agoThank you!
- cousinbryce 7mo agoAnyone else expect prices to go down after the AI pop?
- dyauspitr 7mo agoWith how good Claude code and codex are there might not be one.
- lijok 7mo agoWhere do you envision the pop will come from?
- nostrademons 7mo agoTwo possible sources: 1. People who are currently buying AI services realizing it's not all that useful to them and discontinuing their subscriptions. Note that this can come from a changing ecosystem as much as anything to do with the products themselves. I know a couple people running AI propaganda operations where a single person can now do what previously took a major media conglomerate; this is great for them, but if I personally know a couple folks doing this, it indicates that there are probably hundreds of thousands worldwide, and people are simply going to stop trusting anything they read on the Internet. 2. Rising interest rates from the Iran war. Suddenly the cash flows needed to finance all this datacenter and AI model expansion are much higher, and combined with #1, may not be viable.
- pants2 7mo ago1. Most AI datacenter plans and valuation are not tied to subscriptions, but from a more vague promise of "AGI," so this isn't likely to pop the bubble IMO (even if it does happen) 2. Historical precedent holds that governments are more likely to suppress rates to spur the economy during wartime.
- andriy_koval 7mo ago> Where do you envision the pop will come from? sudden end of overinvestments in hardware procurements by big players. Its unclear if google for example will sustain 50B/y investments.
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- Lord_Zero 7mo agoEveryone panic.
- __patchbit__ 7mo agoWill the Oracle layoffs flood renewed ThinkPads on the market?
- Lord_Zero 7mo agoHoly crap lol EDIT: Oracle will prolly just destroy them. Most companies do.
- axiologist 7mo agohttps://archive.ph/FoWIt https://archive.ph/FoWIt
- fortran77 7mo agoTechnology for things like laptops generally gets better. I still think it's best to buy technology when you need it, not sooner.