• PlantObserver
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    8629 days ago

    Ultra 7 155H with six P-cores, eight E-cores, and eight graphics cores; or an Ultra 7 165H with the same number of cores but marginally higher clock speeds.

    WTF is Intel smoking with these naming schemes I can’t even understand what this means. Thank fuck AMD is an option.

  • @Technus@lemmy.zip
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    2329 days ago

    The Core Ultra chips, like the Ryzen 7040-series chips, also include a neural processing unit (NPU) that can be used to accelerate some AI workloads. But both NPUs fall far short of the performance required for Recall and other locally accelerated AI features coming to Windows 11 24H2 later this year;

    Why even waste the fucking space on the die then?

      • @Technus@lemmy.zip
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        2129 days ago

        I sure as hell don’t, but it seems extra pointless when it can’t even run the workloads it was designed for.

        • tedu
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          729 days ago

          I’m sure it still works in photoshop or whatever, just not the windows stuff.

    • fif-t
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      29 days ago

      Because the NPUs were designed and built and included long before Windows 11’s AI features were announced?

      If I recall correctly, it typically takes about 4 years for a CPU to go from design to distribution.

      • @Technus@lemmy.zip
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        429 days ago

        Meteor Lake was taped out in May 2021 and launched in December 2023. Still much slower than the pace of LLM development, to be fair. It seems more like an “if you build it, they will come” approach. But that’s also how we got stuck with (for most consumer purposes) useless tensor cores on our GPUs. Does anyone even give a shit about raytracing/DLSS anymore?

        It actually sounds like Microsoft is betraying Intel for Qualcomm, since their upcoming processor in the new Surface tablet is the only one that actually meets the requirements. So it looks like Microsoft doesn’t give two shits about supporting existing hardware either way.

        • @iopq@lemmy.world
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          929 days ago

          Tensor cores can be used to play chess, generate images, do realistic text to speech, do noise cancellation, content-aware fill, etc.

          They are only useless to you and other people with no imagination

          • @Technus@lemmy.zip
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            829 days ago

            Chess engines have outplayed humans for thirty years, and they didn’t need teraflops of computing power to do it.

            Generative AI is actively harmful to the environment, slowing the phase-out of coal in the US and guzzling billions of gallons of water. It’s likely going to kill jobs and it’s already filling the internet and the academic world with garbage. It’s also likely a bubble that will burst before long, potentially bringing the economy down with it.

            I’ll give you noise cancellation and text-to-speech, that’s pretty cool.

            But personally, I’d rather have more CUDA cores.

            • @iopq@lemmy.world
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              329 days ago

              I don’t need to outplay humans, I need to see the optimal line to analyze it. Chess is still not solved, so Leela Zero is still helpful because it’s giving better advice than older engines. Even Stockfish went neural network, but a smaller one that reads deeper. They still can’t tell us if the game from the start ends in a draw like checkers.

              Killing jobs is good. It’s already freeing people from having to write things like promotional emails. Maybe they are sad they don’t have a job anymore, but unemployment if 4%, hardly difficult to get a different one. It’s not an important job anyway, I wouldn’t feel creative to write about a labor day sale or whatever

            • @Jrockwar@feddit.uk
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              127 days ago

              That middle paragraph is very misleading. It’s Generative AI as a service that is actively harmful to the environment. Having a 15 W chip to do tasks like erasing objects from a photo is not any more harmful to the environment than a GPU that uses 15W. In fact, NPUs can be more efficient at some tasks than GPUs.

              The problem is opening your phone/browser, and being able to call on demand GPT-4 to wake up a cluster of 128 Nvidia A100s operating at around 300-400W each. That’s 51.2 kW.

              Now you can draw some positives and negatives from that figure, such as

              • Given that an iPhone 15 Pro’s A17 has a thermal design power of 8 W, GPT-4 on the server is about 6400 more energy intensive than anything you can do on an iPhone. 10 seconds of GPT need a similar amount of energy to an iPhone 15 Pro operating flat out at maximum power for 18 hours. Now in those 10 seconds, OpenAI says they “handle multiple user queries simultaneously”, but still - we’re feeding the machine.
              • 51.2 kW is also roughly how much power a large SUV needs to roll at constant speed on a motorway. Each of those large clusters uses a similar amount of energy to a single 7-seater SUV, but serving many users at the same time. Plus unlike cars, a large portion of their energy usage comes from renewables. So yes, I agree that it’s a significant impact but largely overrepresented and we have bigger fish to fry; personal transport is a way bigger issue.
        • @ozymandias117@lemmy.world
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          229 days ago

          I’m so curious to see how a Qualcomm gambit plays out for Microsoft.

          With the ethos at Qualcomm being support a chip for 1 year, then move on, I have trouble believing they’ll update the drivers for a major windows release

          Google browbeat them for nearly 10 years, and then ended up going with the majority Samsung designed chip called Tensor just to compete against Apple in years of updates

  • @hperrin@lemmy.world
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    2029 days ago

    This is all well and good, but what I really want is a Framework 2-in-1. That would be drool worthy.

    • @mlaga97@lemmy.mlaga97.space
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      2529 days ago

      Realistically, the target audience are organizations as nowadays most business laptops are being carried between docking stations with the occasional meeting or air travel in-between and 13" is an excellent size to meet those needs.

      When hooked to a docking station, the screen size and keyboard is entirely irrelevant and modern laptop performance is…honestly crazy good.

      When in a meeting, it’s probably being either used to take notes fullscreen or show a presentation, so pretty neutral.

      Finally, when traveling, you can really can feel the difference between a 13" and a 15" when you’re running on too short of a layover between flights.

      • @MethodicalSpark@lemmy.world
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        929 days ago

        You nailed it. I’m the target audience for this and that is exactly how I use my laptop. Now if only framework would add a touchscreen option and I’d buy it tomorrow.

        • @bobs_monkey@lemm.ee
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          229 days ago

          I’m right there with you. As silly as it is, I absolutely love the touchscreen on my Lenovo. I could live without it, sure, I don’t wanna. Once framework supports it, I’m there.

    • @linearchaos@lemmy.world
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      1529 days ago

      13 is a good “on call”/travel size. It’s not big enough to do serious work on but in a pinch it’s definitely big enough to get something done. It’s more comfortable on a flight, you can toss it a fairly small bag and take it with you. It’s lighter but can still manage a reasonable size keyboard. And when I get to my house or my job I’m plugging into external mouse and keyboard anyway.

      It’s not for everyone but my 13-in motherboard died about 2 months ago and I am definitely in the market. Now if I can just actually buy one of these we’ll see.

    • @thejml@lemm.ee
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      1429 days ago

      To each their own. I’ve personally got a 14” MBP (which is physically the same size as my 13” was, they just have smaller bezels) and work provides me a 16” MBP. The 16 is unwieldy, massive, heavy, too large on my lap, barely fits in my laptop bag, and is a general pain to lug around. Every time I use it I’m reminded of how much I’m glad I got the 14”instead. I feel like the 16 is the worst of both worlds. It’s too big to truly be a portable, machine, but too small to do real work on. Sometimes I’ll think “I wish I had more screen real estate” on the 14, but I do on the 16 as well, so it doesn’t really solve the issue while also being large and heavy.

      In short, it depends on what you like, and what you need to do. Being an ultraportable is a big plus and there are monitors in most places I need more space anyway.

    • @BrianTheeBiscuiteer@lemmy.world
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      429 days ago

      Everyone is different. My favorite computer is my 11" netbook because despite being slow it fits in any bag, fits in my side table, so light I can easily carry with one hand and not put undue pressure on my wrists, I can use most books as a lap desk, and I don’t have to clear off as much space on the table (I have two kids so it’s never clear).

  • @Muffi@programming.dev
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    28 days ago

    I really hope they start shipping to Denmark soon. We’re such a tiny market we often get ignored or forgotten.

  • AutoTL;DRB
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    429 days ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    Prices start at $899 for a pre-built or DIY model (before you add RAM, storage, an OS, or a USB-C charger), or $449 for a motherboard that can be used to upgrade an existing system.

    But both NPUs fall far short of the performance required for Recall and other locally accelerated AI features coming to Windows 11 24H2 later this year; Framework’s blog post doesn’t mention the NPU.

    It has a matte finish and a 120 Hz refresh rate, and it costs $130 more than the standard display or $269 when bought on its own to upgrade an existing laptop.

    All of Microsoft’s Surface devices released within the last few years have also used rounded corners, and I haven’t found that it affects functionality at all.

    Other odds and ends include multicolor USB-C Expansion Cards that are color-matched to the colorful bezel options, an English International keyboard for Linux users with a “super” key in the place of the Windows logo, and a new 9.2-megapixel front-facing webcam module with low-noise microphones (Framework says this module doesn’t work at its native resolution but instead groups four pixels together into one to deliver better performance at 1080p).

    Framework has also added new configuration options for the Ryzen 7040 version of the Laptop 13 that include the new display and has lowered prices on those AMD configs and on "our remaining inventory of 13th-gen Intel Core systems.


    The original article contains 740 words, the summary contains 234 words. Saved 68%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!