> > Most suckers, sorry consumers, will happily vote for crippled > > systems with their wallets, if both case and price tag are smaller > > and lighter. > > OT now, but this statement is so predudicial that I feel it needs > comment. If it fits their needs, why are they suckers? IMO those who > overspend and get a vastly beefier system than they need (e.g. paying > a 30% premium for a 3.4GHz CPU vs a 3.2GHz CPU) (also getting > something heavier in the case of laptops intended for travel use), are > the real suckers.
I'm guessing Brian is making his reasonable statement based on a few facts which may not be obvious. 1) Most user workloads are 'bursty' such that users do not need the ability to sustain full speed for long durations. 2) If you pay more for a laptop with a faster processor, but no better thermal system, you will be operating at a higher proportion of the thermal capacity *while just idling*, so that when a 'burst' of need comes along, you actually will have *less* headroom than a slower machine. So, you pay more, but you get less. I think that justifies the 'suckers' comment. Note that faster processors often do two things which adversely effect idle power consumption: 1) they are made with small lithogrophy which means smaller gate lenghts which means higher leakage currents. 2) they often have to run them at higher voltages Both of these values are larger for a higher speed processor--now, SpeedStep (or whatever it's called these days) can help by lowering the core clock when speed isn't needed, so 2 is somewhat moderated. Power = current * voltage Personally, I'd like to buy a *new* laptop with a very low power processor in it. Something like one of the VIA processors or even a modern high speed ARM core. For me, a laptop is just an interface machine, it's not a *main processing* machine. So, it needs a good keyboard, display, sound, and wireless, but not much CPU. The white box server in the basement can do all of the 'heavy lifting'. So, the short analogy is that laptops are 'sprinters' while servers are 'long distance' runners. I'd stick to the latter for mprime usage. Cheers, David n0ymv _______________________________________________ Prime mailing list [email protected] http://hogranch.com/mailman/listinfo/prime
