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Local AI is driving the biggest change in laptops in decades

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Re: Local AI is driving the biggest change in laptops in decades

#251

Post by astrange »

bad_haircut72 wrote: post #144

My recent shower thought was the idea that Moores law hasnt slowed at all, we just went multi-core. Its crazy that the intel folks were so interested in optimizing for single thread CPU design they completely misunderstood where the best effort would be spent - if I had been around back then (speaking as an Elixir dev) I would have been way more interested in having 500 theead CPUs than getting down to nanometer scal…

Intel designed a super high threaded CPU like that, Knightsbridge. It was useless. Single threaded programs are good.

Re: Local AI is driving the biggest change in laptops in decades

#252

Post by astrange »

autoexec wrote: post #30
marcus_holmes wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't this lead to a lot of tension between the hardware makers and Microsoft? MS wants everyone to run Copilot on their shiny new data centre, so they can collect the data on the way. Laptop manufacturers are making laptops that can run an LLM locally, but there's no point in that unless there's a local LLM to run (and Windows won't have that because Copilot). Are they going to be pre-installing Llama on new lapto…

> MS wants everyone to run Copilot on their shiny new data centre, so they can collect the data on the way. MS doesn't care where your data is, they're happy to go digging through your C drive to collect/mine whatever they want, assuming you can avoid all the dark patterns they use to push you to save everything on OneDrive anyway and they'll record all your interactions with any other AI using Recall

MS doesn't want your data in the first place. Nobody cares about or wants your data. You are not special.

Re: Local AI is driving the biggest change in laptops in decades

#253

Post by subscribed »

mft_ wrote: post #228
gcanyon wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Apple offered a reasonably-priced laptop with more than 24gb of memory (I'm writing this on a maxed-out Air) I'd agree. I've been buying Apple laptops for a long time, and buying the maximum memory every time. I just checked, and I see that now you can get 32gb. But to get 64gb I think you have to spend $3700 for the MBMax, and 128gb starts at $4500, almost 3x the 32gb Air's price. And as far as I understand it, a…

You’re not wrong that Apple’s memory prices are unpleasant, but also consider the competition - in this context (running LLMs locally) laptops with large amounts of fast memory that can be purposed for the GPU . This limits you to Apple or one specific AMD processor at present. An HP Zbook with an AMD 395+ and 128Gb of memory apparently lists for $4049 [0] An ASUS ROG Flow z13 with the same spec sells for $2799 [1] -…

You can get any low spec laptop that has no soldered DIMMs and just replace them with the maximum supported capacity.

You don't necessarily need to go the maxed up SKU.

Re: Local AI is driving the biggest change in laptops in decades

#254

Post by eddyzh »

subscribed wrote: post #253
mft_ wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re not wrong that Apple’s memory prices are unpleasant, but also consider the competition - in this context (running LLMs locally) laptops with large amounts of fast memory that can be purposed for the GPU . This limits you to Apple or one specific AMD processor at present. An HP Zbook with an AMD 395+ and 128Gb of memory apparently lists for $4049 [0] An ASUS ROG Flow z13 with the same spec sells for $2799 [1] -…

You can get any low spec laptop that has no soldered DIMMs and just replace them with the maximum supported capacity. You don't necessarily need to go the maxed up SKU.

Would that be unified memory? Where the gpu and cpu can share the memory? Which is key for performance.

Re: Local AI is driving the biggest change in laptops in decades

#255

Post by gcanyon »

mft_ wrote: post #228
gcanyon wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Apple offered a reasonably-priced laptop with more than 24gb of memory (I'm writing this on a maxed-out Air) I'd agree. I've been buying Apple laptops for a long time, and buying the maximum memory every time. I just checked, and I see that now you can get 32gb. But to get 64gb I think you have to spend $3700 for the MBMax, and 128gb starts at $4500, almost 3x the 32gb Air's price. And as far as I understand it, a…

You’re not wrong that Apple’s memory prices are unpleasant, but also consider the competition - in this context (running LLMs locally) laptops with large amounts of fast memory that can be purposed for the GPU . This limits you to Apple or one specific AMD processor at present. An HP Zbook with an AMD 395+ and 128Gb of memory apparently lists for $4049 [0] An ASUS ROG Flow z13 with the same spec sells for $2799 [1] -…

Yeah, I'm by no means saying that Apple is uniquely bad here -- it's just an issue I've been frustrated by since the first M1 chip, long before local LLMs made it a serious issue. More memory is always a good idea, and too much is never enough.

Re: Local AI is driving the biggest change in laptops in decades

#256

Post by [deleted] »

eddyzh wrote: post #254
subscribed wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can get any low spec laptop that has no soldered DIMMs and just replace them with the maximum supported capacity. You don't necessarily need to go the maxed up SKU.

Would that be unified memory? Where the gpu and cpu can share the memory? Which is key for performance.

[deleted]

Re: Local AI is driving the biggest change in laptops in decades

#257

Post by m4rtink »

solatic wrote: post #239
m4rtink wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure the subscription will still be affordable after the venture capital flood ends and the dumping stops?

You have to remember that companies are kind of fungible in the sense that founders can close old companies and start new ones to walk away from bankruptcies in the old companies. When there's a bust and a lot of companies close up shop, because data centers were overbuilt, there's going to be a lot of GPUs being sold at firesale prices - imagine chips sold at $300k today being sold for $3k tomorrow to recoup a penny…

I do wonder how usable the hardware will be once the creditors are trying to sell it - as far as I can tell is seems the current trend is more and more custom no-matter-the cost super expensive power-inefficient hardware.

The situation might be a lot different than people selling ex-crypto mining GPUs to gamers. There might be a lot of effective scrap that is no longer usable when it is no longer part of a some companies technological fever dream.

Re: Local AI is driving the biggest change in laptops in decades

#258

Post by heavyset_go »

eleventyseven wrote: post #64
mattas wrote: post #61

See: "3D TVs are driving the biggest change in TVs in decades"

A lazy easy cheap shot. But do you deny these aspects from the article are not coming? Or won't be still here in 5 years? - Addition of more—and faster—memory. - Consolidation of memory. - Combination of chips on the same silicon. All of these are also happening for non AI reasons. The move to SoC that really started with the M1 wasn't because of AI, but unified memory being the default is something we will see in 5…

The move to SoC happened long before the M1, it was the state of things in the ARM space for over a decade, and most x86 laptops have been SoCs for quite some time.

Re: Local AI is driving the biggest change in laptops in decades

#259

Post by noman-land »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #184
noman-land wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You doing code completion and agentic stuff successfully with local models? Got any tips? I've been out of the game for [checks watch] a few months and am behind on the latest. Is Cline the move?

I haven't bothered doing code completion locally yet, though its something I want to try with the QWEN model. I'm mostly using it to generate/fix code CLI style.

I had some pretty decent but very non-state-of-the-art success with it even cobbled together with LM Studio and VSCode plugins. I'm excited to keep trying it over the next months and years.

Re: Local AI is driving the biggest change in laptops in decades

#260

Post by heavyset_go »

jeffbee wrote: post #87
tracerbulletx wrote: post #75

This mostly just shows you how far behind the M1 (which came out 5 years ago) all the non Apple laptops are.

You can still get an M1 Macbook Air at retail for $599 ($300 for refurbs), which is a Chromebook price for a laptop that is better in pretty much every respect than any Chromebook.

If you're going for refurbs, you can get a device with an AMD 7000/8000/9000 APU, at the same or lower price point, and the iGPU itself will perform better than an M1 for prompt processing and generation, even with SODIMM memory.
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