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It is worth it to buy the fast CPU

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301–310 of 522 posts

Re: It is worth it to buy the fast CPU

#301
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not even. Probably closer to 30%, and that's if you are doing actual many-core compile workloads on your critical path.

Phoronix has actual benchmarks: https://www.phoronix.com/review/amd-ryzen-9950x-9900x/2 It's not 3x, but it's most certainly above 1.3x. Average for compilation seems to be around 1.7-1.8x.

Oh, fair enough -- you are correct compared to 5950x. I was mentally comparing my personal experience with 7950x. Yes 1.7-1.9x seems fair for a bump from 5950x to 9950x (albeit at a higher power draw).

Re: It is worth it to buy the fast CPU

#302
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…

Where do you even get the $3,000 standing desk? I am don't even compare prices and I got mine from Amazon for $200-$300. Sure the quality might not be the best but I just can't see there are people buying $3000 standing desks.

Re: It is worth it to buy the fast CPU

#303
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…

What would be a good incentivizing strategy to prevent over spending on hardware? I can think of giving a budget and the amount not spend is payed out to them (but when the salary is that high it might not make sense) or like having a internal dashboard where everybody can see every body’s spending on hardware, so people feel bad when they order to much.

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Re: It is worth it to buy the fast CPU

#304
post #293

Is it worth to keep your old CPU? I still run a 6600 (65W peak) from 2016 as my daily driver. I have replaced the SSD once (MLC lasted 5 years, hopefully forever with SLC drive from 2011?), 2x 32GB DDR4 sticks (Kingston Micron lasted 8 years, with aliexpress "samsung" sticks for $50 a pop) and Monitor (Eizo FlexScan 1932 lasted 15! years RIP with Eizo RadiForce 191M, highly recommend with f.lux/redshift for exception…

You could buy a SSD with SLC cache that is bigger than in 2011 pure SLC one, and probably cheaper.

Re: It is worth it to buy the fast CPU

#305

Depends on the workload. I spent a few grand building a new machine with a 24-core CPU. And, while my gcc Docker builds are MUCH faster, the core Angular app still builds a few seconds slower than on my years old MacBook Pro. Even with all of my libraries split into atoms, built with Turbo, and other optimizations. 6-10 seconds to see a CSS change make its way from the editor to the browser is excruciating after a fe…

Web development is crazy. Went from a Java/C codebase to a webdev company using TS. The latter would take minutes to build. The former would build in seconds and you could run a simulated backtest before the web app would be ready. It blew my mind. Truly this is more complicated than trading software.

For this reason the TypeScript 7 compiler will be written in Go.

That won't help Angular, because its design doesn't lend itself to such speedups. The compiler produces a change detector function for every reactive structure such a class field, so the final app is necessarily huge.

Re: It is worth it to buy the fast CPU

#306
post #73
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

iOS development is still mostly local which is why most of the iOS developers at my previous Big Tech employer got Mac Studios as compiler machines in addition to their MacBook Pros. This requires director approval but is a formality. I read Google is now issuing Chromebooks instead of proper computers to non-engineers, which has got to be corrosive to productivity and morale.

Google issued Chromebooks are not crap with 2GB RAM and Celeron. There were even engineers who voluntarily preferred them. From a security standpoint they are superb.

Re: It is worth it to buy the fast CPU

#307
post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

How old was your previous CPU? Different people have vastly different expectations when it comes to upgrading. I'm certain I can play all of the games that I'm interested in on my 3 year old Ryzen 7600x, and that I'm limited by the 5 year old GPU (which I dread upgrading because of the crunch). Would someone with a 5 year old CPU be well served by upgrading to a 9600x, absolutely. But some people think they have to u…

Even for compilation workloads, you need to benchmark beforehand. Threadrippers have lower boost clocks and (in the higher core count models) lower base frequencies than the high end Ryzen desktop CPUs. Most build systems are not optimized for such high core counts.

Re: It is worth it to buy the fast CPU

#308
post #20
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IO bound compiler would be weird. Memory, perhaps, but newer CPUs also tend to be able to communicate with RAM faster, so... I think just having LSP give you answers 2x faster would be great for staying in flow.

Compiler is usually IO bound on windows due to NTFS and the small files in MFT and lock contention problem. If you put everything on a ReFS volume it goes a lot faster. Applies to git operations as well.

by "IO bound" you mean "MS defender bound"

Re: It is worth it to buy the fast CPU

#310
post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My biggest pet peeve is designers using high end apple displays. You've average consumer is using a ultra cheap LCD panel that has no where near the contrast ratio that you are designing your mocks on, all of your subtle tints get saturated out. This is similar to good audio engineers back in the day wiring up a dirt cheap car speaker to mix albums.

> This is similar to good audio engineers back in the day wiring up a dirt cheap car speaker to mix albums. Isn't that the opposite of what's happening? I have decent audio equipment at home. I'd rather listen to releases that were mixed and mastered with professional grade gear. Similarly, I'd like to get the most out of my high-end Apple display. Optimizing your product for the lowest common denominator in music/im…

Ideally, you do both. Optimize on crap hardware, tweak on nice hardware.
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