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The ThinkPad P14s

utkarshsingh.xyz

61–70 of 79 posts

Re: The ThinkPad P14s

#61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time a potential eGPU build has come up for me (~half a dozen times over the past few years) it's always made more sense in the end to simply build a generic ATX box, stuff the GPU in there, and just remote in. FWIW. The two times I tried anyway, because hey, fun new challenge, the primary lesson learned was that it was not worth it, most recently being ~6 months ago.

> The two times I tried anyway, because hey, fun new challenge, the primary lesson learned was that it was not worth it, Not cost effective or too buggy?

Yes to both. On top of that, having the laptop be physically stuck while doing a long CUDA run was a worst-of-both-words situation. Much rather launch something and then be free to take the laptop somewhere else while the run percolates in the server room.

Re: The ThinkPad P14s

#62

I really appreciate "hardware reports" like this. Tangentially related, I've never seen this symbol before: ≍, apparently it means "equivalent to". Is this common notation in certain communities?

In hydraulics that symbol is a fixed flow restrictor such as an orifice plate

Re: The ThinkPad P14s

#63

Is there any laptop these days that comes close to MacBooks hardware-wise and run Linux?

Framework AMD is almost as good and better on the freedom and maintenance aspects.

Not to mention you can put the same amonut of RAM and storage in a DIY with the same processor as this ThinkPad for ~$1400 sticker price for everything, about $700-800 less than this non-upgradeable machine. And if you can sacrifice a bit for the 7640u (~20-25% performance hit), it's about $1100 or ~ half the price of this machine.

Personally I find it hard to believe it's worth spending twice as much for basically the same internals.

Re: The ThinkPad P14s

#64

> For the past year, I have been searching for a replacement for my Lenovo Ideapad. Its 8 GB RAM couldn't keep up with the bloated software I run these days. I have the same laptop (using it right now). You can add another 8GB, even though the specs say you can't. (thanks, lenovo...) The big limitation seems to be CPU, despite having an i7-6500U in this one. Opening Google Maps makes the machine crawl, but most other…

You can buy used Lenovo USB-C docks very cheaply but I've had some issues with those.

I also tried those big rectangular HP USB-C docks, but those things break so quickly they often arrive DOA.

My point is: it's a _great_ idea but I haven't found a dock that works relaibly yet.

Re: The ThinkPad P14s

#65
post #34

> but I still have doubts about the stability of Linux in ARM desktop space. smh, I don't get it. Maybe just bad distros. Linux ARM on desktop is absolutely, 100% perfectly fine. Hell, outside of 3-6 random utilities, Linux RISCV on desktop is similarly usable (probably less if GHC started publishing riscv bootstraps). The only issue is if I need x86_64 emulation, but it's not like I'm hurting for access to an x86_64…

ARM Linux is probably fine, but that doesn't mean using an ARM laptop on Linux is. I've tried Asahi Linux, and go back to trying it about once a month, and using it feels like I'm testing an alpha thing. Using Linux on x86 machine feels like I'm using a computer.

Perhaps some day it'll be good, but not today. The WTF/second ratio is just too high.

Re: The ThinkPad P14s

#66
post #25

Is there any laptop these days that comes close to MacBooks hardware-wise and run Linux?

Nothing from Intel or AMD will come close as it relates to battery life. While there are arm options that have great battery life, the performance doesn't come near to that of a Mac.

Apple CPU has a good performance/ battery balance but they are not the best in either department. AMD reached and surpassed M performance already 1-2 years ago

Re: The ThinkPad P14s

#67
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing from Intel or AMD will come close as it relates to battery life. While there are arm options that have great battery life, the performance doesn't come near to that of a Mac.

Apple CPU has a good performance/ battery balance but they are not the best in either department. AMD reached and surpassed M performance already 1-2 years ago

It's easy to surpass performance with a 150 watt TDP.

But for laptop users who aren't plugged in 24/7 performance/battery life is an important factor.

I don't want a drag-race laptop that has ULTIMATE POWER ... for 1.5 hours and then I need to plug it in to a 200W+ power supply to get it to charge while still working. I want one I can use a full work day and still have battery left.

Re: The ThinkPad P14s

#68
post #51
post #10

Same machine here as well, running the latest Ubuntu (23.10) power profiles do work but auto-cpufreq is way more effective in increasing battery runtime for me. I can get ~6h of runtime (~10W draw) if i mostly just code in VSCode + some browsing, with display at 1/3 brightness and the code being executed remote. Went with the OLED panel, so that definitively doesn't help battery runtime, but damn those colors are nic…

> but damn those colors are nice :) This! One day laptop manufactures (excluding Apple) will understand that a vibrant colorful display is much desired by customers than a 1080p matt finish display.

When someone tells me "you know computers, is this a good laptop for me?", I usually reply along the lines of "make sure you like the picture on the screen and the keyboard/touchpad feels comfortable" - those are the things that can drive you furious or sad about the purchase sooner than anything else.

Re: The ThinkPad P14s

#69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple CPU has a good performance/ battery balance but they are not the best in either department. AMD reached and surpassed M performance already 1-2 years ago

It's easy to surpass performance with a 150 watt TDP. But for laptop users who aren't plugged in 24/7 performance/battery life is an important factor. I don't want a drag-race laptop that has ULTIMATE POWER ... for 1.5 hours and then I need to plug it in to a 200W+ power supply to get it to charge while still working. I want one I can use a full work day and still have battery left.

The good old 5800H had 45W TDP (and was 20% faster than M1).

The newer ones use significantly less power, I belive 15W TDP is common.

Re: The ThinkPad P14s

#70
post #30

For what it's worth I just bought a M1 Pro 14" Macbook Pro. At Amazon, some of these are being sold as Renewed-Excellent condition. It has 16GB of RAM, 512GB SSD. I paid $1380 after tax. I have prime card so I'll receive 5% cashback. It has 90 days return policy. It appears Apple waranty hasn't expired yet either (6 months) which means it was first activated 6 months ago. Its charge cycle count was 2 and the machine…

You can pay monthly for an indefinite apple care warranty. Kinda nice when the soldered on components die they’ll replace it. I think the M3 stock outpaces the M1 Pro. Edit: seems to be a toss up. https://nanoreview.net/en/cpu-compare/apple-m3-vs-apple-m1-p...

I think the GPU performance is better for M1 Pro. M3 has better single core performance and a slightly better power efficiency. I don't need single core performance though as I don't do things that need burst performance on a single core. And for battery power, I think any Macbook is way beyond my needs at this point.

Also similar spec'ed Macbook Pro 14 with M3 (non-pro) is above $1900 after tax. Almost 40% more expensive. Not worth it IMHO.

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