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It is worth it to buy the fast CPU

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Re: It is worth it to buy the fast CPU

#211

Post by jandrese »

the__alchemist wrote: post #198

Tangent: IMO top tier CPU is a no brainer if you play games, run performance-sensitive software (molecular dynamics or w/e), or compile code. Look at GPU purchasing. It's full of price games, stock problems, scalpers, 3rd party boards with varying levels of factory overclock, and unreasonable prices. CPU is a comparative cake walk: go to Amazon or w/e, and buy the one with the highest numbers in its name.

It’s not quite that simple. Often the most expensive chips trade off raw clock speed for more cores, which can be counterproductive if your game only uses 4 threads.

Re: It is worth it to buy the fast CPU

#212

Post by Joel_Mckay »

Like so many things it depends on the use-case...

If you are gaming... than high core count chips like Epyc CPUs can actually perform worse in Desktops, and is a waste of money compared to Ryzen 7/Ryzen 9 X3D CPUs. Better to budget for the best motherboard, ram, and GPU combo supported by a specific application test-ranked CPU. In general, a value AMD GPU can perform well if you just play games, but Nvidia rtx cards are the only option for many CUDA applications.

Check your model numbers, as marketers ruined naming conventions:

https://opendata.blender.org/

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/multithread/

https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html

Best of luck, we have been in the "good-enough" computing age for some time =3

Re: It is worth it to buy the fast CPU

#213

Post by jasode »

dingnuts wrote: post #208
dcrazy wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it “soft fraud” when a manager at an investment bank regularly demands unreasonable productivity from their junior analysts, causing them to work late and effectively reduce their compensation rate? Only if the word “abuse” isn’t ambiguous and loaded enough for you!

Is this meant to be a gotcha question? Yes, unpaid overtime is fraud, and employers commit that kind of fraud probably just as regularly as employees doing the things up thread. none of it is good lol

>, unpaid overtime is fraud,

gp was talking about salaried employees which is legally exempt from overtime pay. There is no rigid 40-hour ceiling for salary pay.

Salary compensation is typical for white-collar employees such as analysts in investment banking and private equity, associates at law firms, developers at tech startups, etc.

Re: It is worth it to buy the fast CPU

#214

Post by diggan »

SoftTalker wrote: post #168
diggan wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> were forced to work on a much slower machine I feel like that's the wrong approach. Like saying a music producer to always work with horrible (think car or phone) speakers. True, you'll get a better mix and master if you test it on speakers you expect others to hear it through, but no one sane recommends you to default to use those for day-to-day work. Same goes for programming, I'd lose my mind if everything was d…

Although, any good producer is going to listen to mixes in the car (and today, on a phone) to be sure they sound at least decent, since this is how many consumers listen to their music.

Yes, this is exactly my point :) Just like any good software developer who don't know exactly where their software will run, they test on the type of device that their users are likely to be running it with, or at least similar characteristics.

Re: It is worth it to buy the fast CPU

#215

Post by AnotherGoodName »

the__alchemist wrote: post #198

Tangent: IMO top tier CPU is a no brainer if you play games, run performance-sensitive software (molecular dynamics or w/e), or compile code. Look at GPU purchasing. It's full of price games, stock problems, scalpers, 3rd party boards with varying levels of factory overclock, and unreasonable prices. CPU is a comparative cake walk: go to Amazon or w/e, and buy the one with the highest numbers in its name.

For games its generally not worthwhile since the performance is almost entirely based on gpu these days.

Almost all build guides will say ‘get midrange cpu X over high end chip Y and put the savings to a better GPU’.

Consoles in particular are just a decent gpu with a fairly low end cpu these days. The xbox one with a 1.75Ghz 8core AMD from a couple of generations ago now is still playing all the latest games.

Re: It is worth it to buy the fast CPU

#216

Post by kev009 »

Aurornis wrote: post #117
avidiax wrote: post #10

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…

Every well funded startup I’ve worked for went through a period where employees could get nearly anything they asked for: New computers, more monitors, special chairs, standing desks, SaaS software, DoorDash when working late. If engineers said they needed it, they got it. Then some period of time later they start looking at spending in detail and can’t believe how much is being spent by the 25% or so who abuse the p…

Netflix, at least the Open Connect org, was still open ended adjacent to whatever NTech provided (your issued laptop and remote working stuff). It was very easy to get "exotic" hardware. I really don't think anyone abused it. This is an existence proof to the comment parents, it's neither a startup and I don't see engineers screwing the wheels off the bus anywhere I've ever worked.

Re: It is worth it to buy the fast CPU

#217

Post by the__alchemist »

AnotherGoodName wrote: post #215
the__alchemist wrote: post #198

Tangent: IMO top tier CPU is a no brainer if you play games, run performance-sensitive software (molecular dynamics or w/e), or compile code. Look at GPU purchasing. It's full of price games, stock problems, scalpers, 3rd party boards with varying levels of factory overclock, and unreasonable prices. CPU is a comparative cake walk: go to Amazon or w/e, and buy the one with the highest numbers in its name.

For games its generally not worthwhile since the performance is almost entirely based on gpu these days. Almost all build guides will say ‘get midrange cpu X over high end chip Y and put the savings to a better GPU’. Consoles in particular are just a decent gpu with a fairly low end cpu these days. The xbox one with a 1.75Ghz 8core AMD from a couple of generations ago now is still playing all the latest games.

Anecdote: I got a massive performance (FPS) improvement in games after upgrading CPU recently, with no GPU change.

I think currently, that build guide doesn't apply based on what's going on with GPUs. Was valid in the past, and will be valid in the future, I hope!

Re: It is worth it to buy the fast CPU

#218

Post by sgarland »

bornfreddy wrote: post #107
sgarland wrote: post #98

Tangential: TIL you can compile the Linux kernel in < 1 minute (on top-spec hardware). Seems it’s been a while since I’ve done that, because I remember it being more like an hour or more.

I remember I was blown away by some machine that compiled it in ~45 minutes. Pentium Pro baby! Those were the days.

My memory must be faulty, then, because I was mostly building it on an Athlon XP 2000+, which is definitely a few generations newer than a Pentium Pro.

I’m probably thinking of various other packages, since at the time I was all-in on Gentoo. I distinctly remember trying to get distcc running to have the other computers (a Celeron 333 MHz and Pentium III 550 MHz) helping out for overnight builds.

Can’t say that I miss that, because I spent more time configuring, troubleshooting, and building than using, but it did teach me a fair amount about Linux in general, and that’s definitely been worth it.

Re: It is worth it to buy the fast CPU

#219

Post by [deleted] »

kev009 wrote: post #216
Aurornis wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every well funded startup I’ve worked for went through a period where employees could get nearly anything they asked for: New computers, more monitors, special chairs, standing desks, SaaS software, DoorDash when working late. If engineers said they needed it, they got it. Then some period of time later they start looking at spending in detail and can’t believe how much is being spent by the 25% or so who abuse the p…

Netflix, at least the Open Connect org, was still open ended adjacent to whatever NTech provided (your issued laptop and remote working stuff). It was very easy to get "exotic" hardware. I really don't think anyone abused it. This is an existence proof to the comment parents, it's neither a startup and I don't see engineers screwing the wheels off the bus anywhere I've ever worked.

[deleted]

Re: It is worth it to buy the fast CPU

#220

Post by enraged_camel »

AnotherGoodName wrote: post #215
the__alchemist wrote: post #198

Tangent: IMO top tier CPU is a no brainer if you play games, run performance-sensitive software (molecular dynamics or w/e), or compile code. Look at GPU purchasing. It's full of price games, stock problems, scalpers, 3rd party boards with varying levels of factory overclock, and unreasonable prices. CPU is a comparative cake walk: go to Amazon or w/e, and buy the one with the highest numbers in its name.

For games its generally not worthwhile since the performance is almost entirely based on gpu these days. Almost all build guides will say ‘get midrange cpu X over high end chip Y and put the savings to a better GPU’. Consoles in particular are just a decent gpu with a fairly low end cpu these days. The xbox one with a 1.75Ghz 8core AMD from a couple of generations ago now is still playing all the latest games.

>> For games its generally not worthwhile since the performance is almost entirely based on gpu these days.

It completely depends on the game. Civilization series, for example, are mostly CPU bound, which is why turns take longer and longer as the games progress.

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