71–80 of 522 posts
Even better way to improve the quality of your computer sessions is "Just use Mac." Apple is so much ahead at the performance curve.
It's not like objective benchmarks disproving these sort of statements don't exist.
Employers, even the rich FANG types, are quite penny-wise and pound-foolish when it comes to developer hardware. Limiting the number and size of monitors. Putting speedbumps (like assessments or doctor's notes) on ergo accessories. Requiring special approval for powerful hardware. Requiring special approval for travel, and setting hotel and airfare caps that haven't been adjusted for inflation. To be fair, I know ple…
FANG is not monolithic. Amazon is famously cheap. So is Apple in my opinion based on what I have heard (you get random refurbished hardware that is available not some standardized thing, sometimes with 8GB RAM sometimes something nicer) Apple is also famously cheap on their compensation. Back in the day they proudly said shit to the effect of "we deliberately don't pay you top of the market because you have to love A…
I read Google is now issuing Chromebooks instead of proper computers to non-engineers, which has got to be corrosive to productivity and morale.
Multi-core operations like compiling C/C++ could benefit. Single thread performance of 16-core AMD Ryzen 9 9950X is only 1.8x of my poor and old laptop's 4-core i5 performance. https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/6211vs3830vs3947/AMD-Ry... I'm waiting for >1024 core ARM desktops, with >1TB of unified gpu memory to be able to run some large LLMs with Ping me when some builds this :)
Yes, just went from i3770 (12 years old!) to a 9900x as I tend to wait for a doubling of single core performance before upgrading (got through a lot of PCs in the 386/486 era!). It's actually only 50% faster according to cpubenchmark [0] but is twice as fast in local usage (multithread is reported about 3 times faster). Also got a Mac Mini M4 recently and that thing feels slow in comparison to both these systems - li…
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Yes, just went from i3770 (12 years old!) to a 9900x as I tend to wait for a doubling of single core performance before upgrading (got through a lot of PCs in the 386/486 era!). It's actually only 50% faster according to cpubenchmark [0] but is twice as fast in local usage (multithread is reported about 3 times faster). Also got a Mac Mini M4 recently and that thing feels slow in comparison to both these systems - li…
M4 is amazing hardware held up by a sub-par OS. One of the biggest bottlenecks when compiling software on a Mac is notarization, where every executable you compile causes a HTTP call to Apple. In addition to being a privacy nightmare, this causes the configure step in autoconf based packages to be excruciatingly slow.
OK, I'm convinced. Can someone tell me what to buy, specifically? Needs to run Ubuntu, support 2 x 4K monitors (3 would be nice), have at least 64GB RAM and fit on my desk. Don't particularly care how good the GPU is / is not. Here's my starting point: gmktec.com/products/amd-ryzen™-ai-max-395-evo-x2-ai-mini-pc. Anything better?
The absolute best would be a 9005 series Threadripper, but you will easily be pushing $10K+. The mainstream champ is the 9950X but despite being technically a mobile SOC the 395 gets you 90% of the real world performance of a 9950X in a much smaller and power efficient computer:
https://www.phoronix.com/review/amd-ryzen-ai-max-arrow-lake/...
I've seen more and more companies embrace cloud workstations. It is of course more expensive but that allows them to offer the latest and greatest to their employees without needing all the IT staff to manage a physical installation. Then your actual physical computer is just a dumb terminal.
> I've seen more and more companies embrace cloud workstations. In which movie ? "Microsoft fried movie" ? Cloud sucks big time. Not all engineers are web developers.
> the top end CPU, AMD Ryzen 9 9950X This is an "office" CPU. Workstation CPUs are called Epyc.
Yeah. I would say, do get a better CPU, but do also research a bit deeper and really get a better CPU. Threadrippers are borderline workstation, too, though, esp. the pro SKUs.
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M4 is amazing hardware held up by a sub-par OS. One of the biggest bottlenecks when compiling software on a Mac is notarization, where every executable you compile causes a HTTP call to Apple. In addition to being a privacy nightmare, this causes the configure step in autoconf based packages to be excruciatingly slow.
They added always-connected DRM to software development, neat
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Just because it doesn't match your situation, doesn't make it a silly argument. Even though I haven't compiled a Linux kernel for over a decade, I still waste a lot of time compiling. On average, each week I have 5-6 half hour compiles, mostly when I'm forced to change base header files in a massive project. This is CPU bound for sure - I'm typically using just over half my 64GB RAM and my development drives are on R…
Why is the client so strict on what you use as a dev machine?