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Nvidia is proposing a beast of a CPU system for Windows PCs

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Re: Nvidia is proposing a beast of a CPU system for Windows PCs

#201

Post by mariopt »

I think most people are not understanding what this kind of laptop will provide.

Before we get local AI, we'll be using hybrid AI.

Running big models locally is unrealistic ($$$$$) but, if you imagine an Agentic Workflow where some bits run on the cloud and other smaller tasks locally, it's an amazing deal. You don't need Opus/Code/DeepSeek/Kimi/etc to do basic stuff that models like Gemma4:12b/Qwen-27b can do locally with much less latency.

Having a laptop where I can use a remote big model and combine it with 5 local domain specific models, is something I would love to do today. Imagine using OpenCode and you've a small model deciding which tasks run locally, then decides if you've a good local model for XYZ task or if we use a cloud model.

My main concern is: Is this hardware powerfull enough to allow local quick models switch? Unlikely but I hope I'm wrong

Re: Nvidia is proposing a beast of a CPU system for Windows PCs

#202

Post by greenavocado »

zozbot234 wrote: post #190
smcleod wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Qwen 3.6 is far ahead of Gemma for most (but not all) things. I've deployed it out across a number of M5 MacBooks and it's genuinely useful for many tasks. It won't replace an Opus or current gen Sonnet sized model but it's still amazingly good for its size and probably as good as or just a bit before Sonnet 4 era. Far more reliable for tool calling, coding, agentic tasks and faster than the Gemma models especially w…

Qwen 3.6 is a toy compared to DeepSeek V4 Flash or Pro. These models can now run on Apple Silicon hardware with as little as 32GB RAM for the Flash (with 2-bit quant, which is still quite capable) using SSD offloading, with just-about-reasonable performance for interactive use, and far better performance on longer contexts than Qwen (due to the more efficient KV cache/attention mechanisms in DeepSeek). Very significa…

Qwen 3.6 27B still curb stomps Deepseek V4 in coding

Re: Nvidia is proposing a beast of a CPU system for Windows PCs

#203

Post by ksec »

modeless wrote: post #119

The Qualcomm Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme trounces Nvidia's chip in single core CPU performance. It beats Intel and AMD's best, too. It has unified memory. It's the only CPU in the same league as Apple's M-series in both CPU performance and power efficiency. And it's available in laptops today, not later this year. People are sleeping on Qualcomm.

It trounces ARM's old CPU design. The X925 used in this Nvidia chip is 2 years old. X930 or C1 has shipped with Mediatek Dimensity 9500 which is what the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 / X2 Elite should be compared to. Although Qualcomm still has a lead in performance, but it is increasingly shrinking.

But perhaps more importantly. Nvidia seems to be doing a lot better with its ecosystem. Nvidia has much better distribution channels and partners building on top of their PC Gaming GPU. It also have gaming developers relations that is unmatched by any in the industry.

Qualcomm has so far failed to execute this, both in PC and on there Server CPU side.

Re: Nvidia is proposing a beast of a CPU system for Windows PCs

#204

Post by Asmod4n »

stego-tech wrote: post #197

The Unified Memory pool is what will continue to be the “game changer” in systems architecture, especially outside of data centers. The reality is even cutting edge games and consumer workloads don’t actually take full use of the PCIe bandwidth of the GPU or the bandwidth of its GDDR memory. Even local AI use cases don’t substantially or meaningfully benefit from faster memory, at least to average consumers. A unifie…

yeah, you only see double digits in performance degradation from going from pcie 5 to 3 with a 5090 (at x16 speed), with everything else its like in the single digits area.

Re: Nvidia is proposing a beast of a CPU system for Windows PCs

#205

Post by vlovich123 »

stego-tech wrote: post #197

The Unified Memory pool is what will continue to be the “game changer” in systems architecture, especially outside of data centers. The reality is even cutting edge games and consumer workloads don’t actually take full use of the PCIe bandwidth of the GPU or the bandwidth of its GDDR memory. Even local AI use cases don’t substantially or meaningfully benefit from faster memory, at least to average consumers. A unifie…

> (which is good for Rust adherents, I figure).

As a Rust adherent, please do not put words in our mouths or set up unrealistic expectations for other people by linking together concepts at a very shallow level.

Language level memory safety has no answer for hardware security flaws which is what side channel attacks are. No programming language can provide memory privacy if another chip in your machine can read your memory. Just like no programming language can protect your application from a kernel vulnerability of the kernel it’s running on.

Re: Nvidia is proposing a beast of a CPU system for Windows PCs

#206

Post by wmf »

dagmx wrote: post #76

This feels fluff to me on the part of the author (whose work I don’t want to trivialize) but I don’t think they’ve actually looked deeper than a paper spec sheet on this. 1. Yes it has the same number of cores as a 5070 mobile. It’s also running at a shared peak of 2/3 the bandwidth and a shared peak of 2/3 the TDP. The GPU by itself will likely perform at half the dedicated units performance 2. Apple may not have SV…

Lemire is very narrowly interested in CPU SIMD so within that niche it may be interesting. As you said, overall the Spark is good but not great.

Re: Nvidia is proposing a beast of a CPU system for Windows PCs

#207

Post by wccrawford »

throw0101a wrote: post #83
root-parent wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I am not sure how many people will run AI models locally. It still seems like a niche application to me. However, it will make decent machines to play video games..." This is the 2026 edition of Ken Olsen: "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home"

> This is the 2026 edition of Ken Olsen: "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home" Digging into this: > In conclusion, there is evidence that Ken Olsen did doubt the need for computers in the home, but the evidence is based primarily on the testimony of David Ahl who was perturbed when the personal computer project he championed at DEC was not supported by Olsen in 1974. > Olsen’s resistance may…

That's exactly the point. Until recently, AI models that could run on home machines were so bad that it was very hard to imagine anyone wanting to.

And, like the overly large machines of 1977, models are getting faster, leaner, and better. It's happening a lot quicker, though.

Re: Nvidia is proposing a beast of a CPU system for Windows PCs

#208

Post by re-thc »

bradfa wrote: post #125
modeless wrote: post #119

The Qualcomm Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme trounces Nvidia's chip in single core CPU performance. It beats Intel and AMD's best, too. It has unified memory. It's the only CPU in the same league as Apple's M-series in both CPU performance and power efficiency. And it's available in laptops today, not later this year. People are sleeping on Qualcomm.

Qualcomm is a “fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, you don’t fool me twice” kind of situation. So many horrible experiences in the past that people are going to be hesitant. Qualcomm are trying harder now it seems. But it will take time to repair their reputation in the PC market.

> Qualcomm are trying harder now it seems.

Not really, the 1st. iteration got stuck in legal land and other delays.

Re: Nvidia is proposing a beast of a CPU system for Windows PCs

#209

Post by re-thc »

modeless wrote: post #119

The Qualcomm Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme trounces Nvidia's chip in single core CPU performance. It beats Intel and AMD's best, too. It has unified memory. It's the only CPU in the same league as Apple's M-series in both CPU performance and power efficiency. And it's available in laptops today, not later this year. People are sleeping on Qualcomm.

> People are sleeping on Qualcomm.

Technically speaking, Qualcomm acquired Nuvia, which is where this came from and that company came from ex-Apple engineers wanting to do what Apple said no for their chips.

So it's almost same CPU design (origins).

Re: Nvidia is proposing a beast of a CPU system for Windows PCs

#210

Post by stego-tech »

vlovich123 wrote: post #205
stego-tech wrote: post #197

The Unified Memory pool is what will continue to be the “game changer” in systems architecture, especially outside of data centers. The reality is even cutting edge games and consumer workloads don’t actually take full use of the PCIe bandwidth of the GPU or the bandwidth of its GDDR memory. Even local AI use cases don’t substantially or meaningfully benefit from faster memory, at least to average consumers. A unifie…

> (which is good for Rust adherents, I figure). As a Rust adherent, please do not put words in our mouths or set up unrealistic expectations for other people by linking together concepts at a very shallow level. Language level memory safety has no answer for hardware security flaws which is what side channel attacks are. No programming language can provide memory privacy if another chip in your machine can read your…

Damn. That wasn’t my intention at all, I was just pointing out that Rust has another reason to see wider adoption vis a vis the usual Valley advertising bullshit of deliberately conflating hardware security with software security. I personally give no fucks what something is written in, only that it’s written well enough that I don’t have to twist arms or babysit yet another sloppy piece of code in my enterprise.
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