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Ask HN: Do you feel bad when devices aren't utilized to the extreme?

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Re: Ask HN: Do you feel bad when devices aren't utilized to the extreme?

#71

Post by trap_goes_hot »

tharkun__ wrote: post #26
madsbuch wrote: post #22

To be honest an M1 (M1 Max, 64GB RAM) performs quite poor doing serious software development. As an example, it takes 22 sec to run a test suite on the M1, in our CI the same test suite takes 9 sec. These might be due to software that has not been written yet. To be honest, the computer seems like a high end office computer, so I think that use case seems spot on.

You say "a" test suite as if this was universal truth. I can tell you that it is not and your suspicion is correct. It depends. Our own test suites saw 25-50% performance increases / decrease in runtime on our developer machines when we switched to M1s for example.

I don't understand this. Does Apple market their M1 as "it depends" ? Or do they say "When you need the highest level of performance ever in a Mac notebook, there’s M1 Max.". I would be insisting Apple actually backup their claim rather than criticizing the OP.

Re: Ask HN: Do you feel bad when devices aren't utilized to the extreme?

#72

Post by nicolaslem »

PaulHoule wrote: post #34
nicolaslem wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you talking about the Atom line of Intel CPUs? If so, I don't really understand this comment. Atoms are used in all kind of applications where low(ish) power x86 is required. They even support ECC RAM making them great fit for NAS and embedded servers deployed in the field. They may not shine as a general purpose CPU but they are definitely not ewaste.

There are the netbooks which are e-Waste when they are new, and then there was https://www.theregister.com/2017/02/06/cisco_intel_decline_t... Any other vendor that had a failing product line would have retired the brand a long time ago and come out with a new name (look at how no small car brand from an American manufacturer ever survives more than a few years.) Instead Intel comes out with all kinds of forgettable…

I still don't agree with the e-waste thing. As a student back in 2008, I did all my five years of CS degree on a 11" Atom netbook. Maybe it's the nostalgia talking but these things were awesome. They were super affordable, much smaller than the laptops of the era, ran Linux without trouble, were hackable... so much that using them as Hackintosh was basically the equivalent of a Macbook Air before the Macbook Air even existed.

Besides the netbooks, plenty of sysadmins in my circles started their journey by renting small Atom dedicated servers for a few bucks a month from the likes of OVH.

Re: Ask HN: Do you feel bad when devices aren't utilized to the extreme?

#73

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

techsupporter wrote: post #25

No, because always running at maximum capacity is an indication that something has no room for failure, or for growth. I have a M2 MacBook Air with the most amount of RAM and storage that Apple would sell me. I'm sure its CPU sits at about 5% utilization almost the entire day. This was intentional on my part. I bought a laptop with enough "extra" capacity that it will be able to handle increased inefficiencies, bloat…

Just out of curiosity- which computer did you replace with the M2 Air?

Re: Ask HN: Do you feel bad when devices aren't utilized to the extreme?

#75

Post by LinuxBender »

jcelerier wrote: post #62
LinuxBender wrote: post #3

Do you feel bad when devices aren't utilized to the extreme? No. My devices are rarely utilizing over 40% CPU and tend to last for a very long time. I know it isn't much but this helps keep some gear out of the landfill. I can always find a use for older hardware. This Linux PC I am writing this post on is coming up on 12 years old and is more than adequate for my purposes. I expect it to last at least another 10 yea…

> This Linux PC I am writing this post on is coming up on 12 years old and is more than adequate for my purposes it is very very likely wasting a ton of watts doing what a secondhand stick PC such as https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B08G1CCWN5 can do in less than 10 watts, so no, it is very much not adequate from a global point of view

I get what you are saying but I enable a lot of power management controls specifically so that I can run on the inverter for a long time during power outages. This was a medium-to-low-end PC when it came out so it was already decent on power usage. When the day comes that I replace the HDD with a SSD I'm sure that number will drop even more.

Re: Ask HN: Do you feel bad when devices aren't utilized to the extreme?

#76

Post by bravetraveler »

I used to concern myself with it, but then I realized I'm really bad at tracking time/utility

For example, I've always had 'more computer' than I truly need. It hasn't turned out to be a bad thing though, because sometimes usage does surge. Maybe the situation calls for being able to build that thing really ridiculously quickly. Whatever.

I think 'opportunity cost' applies, and attempts on that calculus are beyond me

Re: Ask HN: Do you feel bad when devices aren't utilized to the extreme?

#77

Post by tharkun__ »

trap_goes_hot wrote: post #71
tharkun__ wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say "a" test suite as if this was universal truth. I can tell you that it is not and your suspicion is correct. It depends. Our own test suites saw 25-50% performance increases / decrease in runtime on our developer machines when we switched to M1s for example.

I don't understand this. Does Apple market their M1 as "it depends" ? Or do they say "When you need the highest level of performance ever in a Mac notebook, there’s M1 Max.". I would be insisting Apple actually backup their claim rather than criticizing the OP.

How does marketing come in?

The OP made a claim of basically (paraphrasing here): "this thing blows, it results in a 50% performance drop for test suites".

I believe him for his case. Our case was showing the oppositebehavior. Thus it seems to depend. Simple logic.

Re: Ask HN: Do you feel bad when devices aren't utilized to the extreme?

#80

Post by MrTortoise »

nrp wrote: post #70
mk_stjames wrote: post #8

It would only be considered 'wasted' if energy was free. But energy is not free, and thus choosing how to use compute resources is still important. e.g. I own a few high powered workstations for fluid dynamics computations. If energy was free, I would be just running 'what-if' solves all the time just for the hell of it. But because energy isn't free, they stay in sleep unless I need them for what is deemed 'necessar…

For most consumer electronics devices, the energy that goes into manufacturing them vastly exceeds the total energy used during their lifetimes. In that sense (ignoring differences in emissions from different energy sources), from an environmental perspective it’s better to have fewer products running at a higher duty cycle (may not be applicable to high-performance workstations).

do you have any data to support that?
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