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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

#251

Post by jacobolus »

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…

> highest spec MacBook just to do web development and open 500 chrome tabs. There is abuse.

Why is that abuse? Having many open browser tabs is perfectly legitimate.

Arguably they should switch from Chrome to Safari / lobby Google to care about client-side resource use, but getting as much RAM as possible also seems fine.

Re: It is worth it to buy the fast CPU

#252

Post by ocdtrekkie »

beezle wrote: post #245

When ever I've built a new desktop I've always gone near the top performance with some consideration given to cache and power consumption (remember when peeps cared about that? lol). From dual pentium pros to my current desktop - Xeon E3-1245 v3 @ 3.40GHz built with 32 GB top end ram in late 2012 which has only recently started to feel a little pokey, I think largely due to cpu security mitigations added to Windows o…

I think people overestimate the value of a little bump in performance. I recently built a gaming PC with a 9700X. The 9800X3D is drastically more popular, for an 18% performance bump on benchmarks but double the power draw. I rarely peg my CPU, but I am always drawing power.

Higher power draw means it runs hotter, and it stresses the power supply and cooling systems more. I'd rather go a little more modest for a system that's likely to wear out much, much slower.

Re: It is worth it to buy the fast CPU

#253

Post by gregshap »

dcrazy wrote: post #175
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…

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!

The pay and working hours are extremely well known to incoming jr investment bankers

Re: It is worth it to buy the fast CPU

#254

Post by necovek »

1over137 wrote: post #200
delusional wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish I was compiler bound. Nowadays, with everything being in the cloud or whatever I'm more likely to be waiting for Microsoft's MFA (forcing me to pick up my phone, the portal to distractions) or getting some time limited permission from PIM. The days when 30 seconds pauses for the compiler was the slowest part are long over.

You must be a web developer. Doing desktop development, nothing is in the cloud for me. I’m always waiting cor my compiler.

More likely in an enterprise company using MS tooling (AD/Entra/Outlook/Teams/Office...) with "stringent" security settings.

It gets ridiculous quickly, really.

Re: It is worth it to buy the fast CPU

#255

Post by necovek »

krisroadruck wrote: post #116
jhanschoo wrote: post #26

Important caveat that the author neglects to mention since they are discussing laptop CPUs in the same breath: The limiting factor on high-end laptops is their thermal envelope. Get the better CPU as long as it is more power efficient. Then get brands that design proper thermal solutions.

You simply cannot cram enough cooling and power into a laptop to have it equal a desktop high end desktop CPU of the same generation. There is physically not enough room. Just about the only way to even approach that would be to have liquid cooling loop ports out the back that you had to plug into an under-desk cooling loop and I don't think anyone is doing that because at that point just get a frickin desktop comput…

If you have to do any travel for work, a lightweight but fast portable machine that is easy to lug around beats any productivity gains from two machines (one much faster) due to the challenge of keeping two devices in sync.

Re: It is worth it to buy the fast CPU

#256

Post by llbbdd »

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…

Always amuses me when I see someone use web development as an example like this. Web dev is very easily in the realm of game dev as far as required specs for your machine, otherwise you're probably not doing much actual web dev. If anything, engineers doing nothing but running little Java or Python servers don't need anything more than a PI and a two-color external display to do their job.

Re: It is worth it to buy the fast CPU

#258

Post by LevGoldstein »

alt227 wrote: post #189
hellisothers wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But at the FAANGy companies I’ve worked at this issue persists. Mobile engineers working on 3yo computers and seeing new hires compile 2x (or more) faster with their newer machines.

If they care that much about compile time, they would work on a desktop instead of a laptop.

...and we're back to trying to convince a penny-wise pound-foolish company to buy twice the computing hardware for every developer.

Re: It is worth it to buy the fast CPU

#259

Post by mort96 »

Aeolun wrote: post #152
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…

Don’t you think the problem there is that you hired the wrong people?

As a company grows, it will undoubtedly hire some "wrong people" along the way.

Re: It is worth it to buy the fast CPU

#260

Post by rafaelmn »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #252
beezle wrote: post #245

When ever I've built a new desktop I've always gone near the top performance with some consideration given to cache and power consumption (remember when peeps cared about that? lol). From dual pentium pros to my current desktop - Xeon E3-1245 v3 @ 3.40GHz built with 32 GB top end ram in late 2012 which has only recently started to feel a little pokey, I think largely due to cpu security mitigations added to Windows o…

I think people overestimate the value of a little bump in performance. I recently built a gaming PC with a 9700X. The 9800X3D is drastically more popular, for an 18% performance bump on benchmarks but double the power draw. I rarely peg my CPU, but I am always drawing power. Higher power draw means it runs hotter, and it stresses the power supply and cooling systems more. I'd rather go a little more modest for a syst…

Is it really 2x or is it 2x at max load ? Since, as you say, you're not peggig the CPU - would be interesting to compare power usage on a task basis and the duration. Could be that the 3D cache is really adding that much overhead even to idle CPU.

Anyway I've never regretted buying a faster CPU (GPU is a different story, burned some money there on short time window gains that were marginally relevant), but I did regret saving on it (going with M4 air vs M4 pro)

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