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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

#331

Post by ChocolateGod »

jeroenhd wrote: post #165
embedding-shape wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like not? Judging based on https://github.com/qualcomm-linux something is happening, although I can't say how much. They definitively seem awake at least.

The problem with these chips on Linux is that something has been happening for months but you still end up needing to download special editions of ARM Linux images to get these devices to work properly. Some distros still need extracting Qualcomm firmware from Windows to get Linux to work properly. Audio remains a challenge, like x86 Linux decades ago. Apparently camera stuff works these days but produces images of s…

> but you still end up needing to download special editions of ARM Linux images to get these devices to work properly

This is a problem with Linux on ARM generally (Android has had it since inception), it's not a Qualcomm problem.

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

#332

Post by QQ00 »

MBCook wrote: post #314
cm2187 wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And conveniently, by making your machine non upgradeable, it allows the manufacturer to enforce market segmentation / charge a huge premium for small RAM upgrade ( a la Apple)

Is that required or just a choice Apple made?

both. soldered ram is faster. also Apple don't want to offer upgradblity after purchase.

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

#333

Post by cyanydeez »

throw1234567891 wrote: post #258
cyanydeez wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm aware you can have more. the term "SWEET SPOT" references a area that anyone/everyone can get to and isn't some magical expensive unicorn. You're doing what the IT industry has been addicted to for decades: number goes up.

> You're doing what the IT industry has been addicted to for decades: number goes up. No, I have a hands on experience with bigger models, and understand the advantages of using them.

you mean you're addicted to not understanding anything you do. That's fine. The rest of us arn't going to experience the glory of api bills going up.

You also probably believe you need to 'escape the permanent underclass'

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

#334

Post by ForOldHack »

to11mtm wrote: post #324
cm2187 wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And conveniently, by making your machine non upgradeable, it allows the manufacturer to enforce market segmentation / charge a huge premium for small RAM upgrade ( a la Apple)

It doesn't -have- to be that way necessarily... LPCAMM2/SOCAMM2 exist, heck I think Framework is using LPCAMM2 in one of their new laptops. Heck, I'm willing to bet that a lot of manufacturers would rather go that route than soldered in, if for no other reason than the relative cost of warranty work between the two. However, people probably need to stop being obsessed with ultrathin laptops for that to happen.

Sir! I am typing this on a Lenovo Carbon X1, with soldered on ram, and you are EXACTLY CORRECT!

I would much prefer two SODIMM sockets with the option to go to 32MB shared video memory, or DDR4/DDR5. Give me OPTIONS!

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

#335

Post by noveltyaccount »

> “Our goal is to deliver unmetered intelligence to every home and every desk with Windows,” said Satya Nadella, chairman and CEO of Microsoft. “RTX Spark marks a real breakthrough towards that vision.”

I expect computers with this chip will be about $4000. If Microsoft can deliver on local AI models that can orchestrate Windows and have solid real world intelligence, that will be an inexpensive business purchase compared to pay as you go tokens. I'm excited to see how this plays out.

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

#336

Post by dakolli »

root-parent wrote: post #72
infecto wrote: post #15

"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." I don't know who will be the winner but with some of the recent releases from gemma it seems more probable that you may run some models locally if only from a cost perspective, not even considering business security. Not sure how this type of architectur…

"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"

I will not be spending thousands in hardware to run the worlds most mediocre llms at meh speeds. Sorry. I know for llm bros they think every output made by an LLM is magic, like every NFT guy thought every NFT collection was game changing, but there's nothing useful you can do with llms and 128gb of RAM (and there never will be) unless you have llm psychosis. Who cares.

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

#337

Post by MBCook »

JohnBooty wrote: post #272
dahart wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have so many questions… Since Apple already sells unified memory systems, what is the market opportunity you envision? Do you see Nvidia and Apple as competitors, and how? (And I’m not suggesting they’re not, necessarily, but I want to hear where you’re coming from, and they do have very different markets.) Hasn’t Apple used storage size (RAM & disk) for market segmentation for decades? And how does a machine with…

I'm not the person you're replying to, but I wholeheartedly agree with them... Quick background: doing AI inference requires three things. Lots of memory, lots of memory bandwidth, and of course plenty of compute that has access to that memory. Quick reference: nVidia 5090 has 1,792 GB/sec bandwidth. 3090 gets about 1000 GB/sec. DGX Spark and AMD 395 whatever get about 275 GB/sec. Apple M1 Max gets 400GB/sec, M5 Max…

There’s something else. Memory size.

Even if a Mac isn’t the fastest in raw numbers it may be faster if it can load the whole model in its ram (went up to 512 GB before shortages) than a couple 32 GB cards could with the data having to be constantly loaded over PCI-E. Because unified memory means the Apple GPUs can access all 512 GB at full speed.

My understanding is this is the advantage that’s pushing huge Mac Studio demand. Because it was the only way to give GPUs so much memory at price points anywhere near.

Yeah you can do way better once you’re in the 5 digits. But below that Apple had a specific advantage for some.

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

#338

Post by alkonaut »

GuestFAUniverse wrote: post #88

And who in 2026 is still anal-fixated on a "Windows" PC? It's just a personal computer. It normally runs multiple operating systems just fine. Windows PC sounds like people talking about tech who are either payed by M$, or embed pictures into Word documents to send them. Nobody has to kill the fun those OS agnostic machine allow, by artificially bind them to a shitty OS.

And this isn't a "Windows PC" in the traditional sense. The reason people run Windows in the enterprise (and for some desktop home uses like games) is still hardware and software compat.

I run it for work because we make windows programs. We use drivers that don't exist on Win-for-ARM yet. So to most people a "Windows PC" is an x64 Windows PC still. The risk for MS if compat isn't good enough for Windows-Arm64 is that people might as well shift from windows entirely if they need new software and harware anyway.

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

#339

Post by Auracle »

zozbot234 wrote: post #299
Salgat wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To this day I do not get why Intel doesn't just offer massive memory options for their cards. Just charge what it costs to add the extra memory, no upcharge, and they will never be able to keep up with demand. Cheap VRAM is enough to justify a lot of open source investment into challenging CUDA.

> To this day I do not get why Intel doesn't just offer massive memory options for their cards. They seem to? Intel Arc is the cheapest option by far for a discrete card with 32GB VRAM.

That’s not massive, though. Make it 96GB at $2,000 (ok, probably impossible right now, but they could have before the surge in prices) and you’ll see developers work really hard to make AI tooling work for their cards, CUDA be damned. The same goes for AMD.

It’s like they both want to rely on market segmentation for VRAM too but fail to realize that it’s their only potential inroad right now.

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

#340

Post by cthalupa »

Animats wrote: post #251

How much is this supposed to cost, fully populated with 128GB of RAM? How much would this laptop cost? It's not that the NVidia chip has that much RAM built in, after all. It's that it can address that much. RAM is sold separately.

The dgx spark is the same chip and those are in the low 3s to 5 range for most of them depending on manu, storage config, etc. The dgx sparks also have connectx 7 cards in them to support the 200gbps networking for RoCE.

So I would expect the mini PCs to come in less than the sparks. Laptops I assume will be close in price with the addition of all the other laptop stuff.

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