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Ice Lake GPU underperforming? Put it in powersave mode. Wait, what?:
Back in December, Linux users were starting to notice that Ice Lake-equipped laptops were getting better framerates in powersave mode than in performance mode. This Tuesday, Intel developer Francisco Jerez released a patchset to address the conundrum. Jerez begins by noting the fact that if your system bottleneck is I/O, boosting CPU performance won't help—the CPU can't process more data if the I/O subsystem isn't providing it fast enough.
"In IO-bound scenarios (by definition) the throughput of the system doesn't improve with increasing CPU frequency beyond the threshold value at which the IO device becomes the bottleneck."
Jerez goes on to note that pointlessly boosting the CPU into turbo frequencies when there's no additional data for it to process doesn't just hurt power efficiency. In the case of laptop designs, there's typically no room for desktop- or server-style "overengineering"—you've got limited space as well as limited power. This means, among other things, that there's only so much cooling to go around.
"With the current governors [...] the CPU frequency tends to oscillate with the load, often with an amplitude far into the turbo range, leading to severely reduced energy efficiency."
(Score: 2) by toddestan on Monday March 16 2020, @03:34AM (1 child)
Where do you work that most of your coworkers live in a dorm?
Even when I lived in the dorms at the university in the very early 2000's back when laptops were too expensive for most college students so we all had PC towers and clunky CRT monitors, we got by just fine. Typically one of use would use the crappy, permanently attached to the wall, and poorly located desk they provided, and the other would get a crappy folding table or maybe a cheap desk from Walmart that's made from compressed sawdust. Hell, I remember towards the end when people started upgrading to LCDs - not us, we were too poor - but we were more than happy to take that spare CRT off your hands. And now our dorm room had two power hungry Athlon-based towers, each with dual CRT's. It got warm, especially since the dorms weren't air conditioned.
I've never been impressed with the gaming laptops. They are expensive, run super hot, and if you use them for their intended purpose you might get three years out them before they burn themselves out. Though on the other hand, they are one of the few laptops still built today that have some upgradeability and a keyboard that isn't total rubbish.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 18 2020, @03:11AM
My guess would be the field of law enforcement, in the LEA decoy division.