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from the like-having-a-server-in-your-pocket dept.
Late last week Intel announced its first workstation-grade Xeon CPUs for laptops. The exact details aren't available, nor is a release date, although the details it did release are intriguing.
Xeons have been available for high-end desktops doing work like CAD and other graphic design because they have features a business power user would want, like error correcting code (ECC) memory and the vPro business management features.
The laptop processor, the Xeon E3-1500M v5, is meant for that same market of power users who are on the go or move between locations and need mobility. And while the new Skylake processor will have some advanced features like ECC, there are some other goodies.
The Xeon E3-1500M v5 will include Thunderbolt 3 and USB Type-C ports, which support 10Gbps USB 3.1 Gen 2 transfer speeds. It will also have its own optimized graphics, although Intel did not go into details. The Xeon has never been known as a graphics champ since it runs on servers, but the upcoming Skylake line is said to have very good graphics, so we may see a desktop Xeon with Skylake-level graphics.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 13 2015, @12:22PM
I remember when Intel sold processors. Processors. Not laptop processors, not workstation processors, not desktop processors, not business processors, not consumer processors, not server processors, and not phone processors. Processors.
(Score: 3, Funny) by TwentyCharsIsNotEnou on Thursday August 13 2015, @12:52PM
I agree, nothing should change.
Let's ban change!
(Score: 5, Funny) by miljo on Thursday August 13 2015, @02:35PM
Let's ban change!
But that's different than what we do now, I'm not comfortable with that.
One should strive to achieve, not sit in bitter regret.
(Score: 4, Touché) by schad on Thursday August 13 2015, @01:00PM
Servers, desktops, laptops, and phones all have radically different "thermal profiles" (ability to dissipate heat). You put a server CPU in a phone and it won't work. It'll spend all its time in thermal shutdown. You can make a laptop that can handle a desktop CPU -- there are companies that do it -- but it's not really a normal laptop. It's more like a man-portable all-in-one. Even those usually only run at full (desktop-equivalent) speed in very short bursts. There's a market for these so-called "desktop replacements," but it's not a terribly big one.
There are definitely stupid artificial restrictions -- socket count, virtualization features, etc. -- but none of the stuff you mentioned qualifies.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Hyperturtle on Thursday August 13 2015, @01:29PM
I think this is just marketing to help cover or repair damage to their brand.
Consider that the newest laptops have that nice new energy saving "Core M" CPUs. They are, by most measures, not worth buying.
They peak at a high speed and heat up rapidly, causing the device to throttle the processor quite dramatically. Brand new devices with a faster Core M processor than the models they replaced -- often perform more slowly than their predecessors.
People also have noted that the devices will heat up more, because vendors took advantage of the energy saving/thermal reduction features of the chip. This causes the performance to drop even further, because many brand name laptops have opted to skimp or eliminate the active fan based cooling because "Core M" processors are marketing as being faster, better, and not requiring battery draining and space consuming fans.
There has been a good deal of negative reviews. For light use -- they are fine. Just like any cheap processor. The only constant in change when it comes to email, web use, and casual gaming... is the CPU power needed to run a modern website. Javascript can turn these things into a hot mess, and the CPU has been designed to extend battery life and give a boost when launching applications--not for long-term use.
Putting a Xeon into a laptop appears to be a response to correct that wrong. While I can't claim to know how these will work... traditional Xeons are not intended for a lower power use case, or a thermal environment without active or some kind of cooling that takes into effect great temperature peaks than many consumer devices experience normally.
I would have to guess these may be similar to Core Ms that don't throttle as badly due to differing requirements for their inclusion in a laptop. Sort of like putting a start button back into the OS and getting rave reviews because the focus is on that one thing, these processors are not likely server grade, and simply may be banking on the fact that they don't act like an ultrabook processor, if they are required to have a more proactive cooling solution.
Considering these are still going to be "Skylakes", I imagine they may be better performing Core Ms with a more aggressive cooling requirement.
In any event, even if my technical description is wrong (I did a quick check and see nothing to refute it...) it still feels like a marketing move to restore faith and repair branding damage, as opposed to any real progress. Putting active cooling on something that needed it to begin with...
Never buy a CPU based on temporary peak turbo speed...
(Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday August 13 2015, @03:38PM
I agree that the M line is mostly a burst mode processor. But it is probably well targeted to the market segment that uses it for watching cat videos on YouTube.
The problem with laptops is that nobody wants to design a laptop with enough passive-radiator cooling into the cases. That forces them to put in big fans, but those require air flow paths which are also difficult to provide in laptop cases. The mindless pursuit of thin laptops exacerbates the issue. In addition to no cooling there is no room for batteries.
So they end up stuffing low-power chips into cases with inadequate cooling, and you are hard pressed to find laptops capable of even half of the performance of a desktop.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 14 2015, @05:01AM
don't forget stupid ass people who want ooo thinner! lighter! laptops. all of them. theyre reaping what theyve sown. in some ways, fuck Jony Ive too, for pushing this vanity button so well.
remember Pentium 4 and RAMBUS? was nice laughing as my dual 800Mhz P3 was more performant than that bad turn. glad some infidels managed to get Intel to kill it, with their P3-based Core processors.
(Score: 3, Informative) by gman003 on Thursday August 13 2015, @01:44PM
Yes. Back then they sold one chip that worked tolerably for everything. Mostly. Their servers were underpowered, their laptops had minimal battery life, and only their desktops came close to working as well as they could.
Now they sell laptop chips that are really good in laptops, desktop chips that are really good in desktops, server chips that are really good in servers, and cellphone chips that... work tolerably in cellphones. Some of it is artificial division - there's not much of a difference between a desktop i7 and a server E3, to the point that they're socket-compatible. Similarly, the laptop and desktop chips come off the same fab line, they just pick the more power-efficient ones for laptops, and the ones that handle high clocks for desktops. But a lot of it is actual, meaningful division. The Xeon E5/E7 chips have all the extra circuitry for multi-socket operations, which would be wasted in a desktop, and they usually have far more cores, at lower speed, which would not perform well in a client setting. The mobile chips generally have trouble hitting the high clock rates of the desktop/server chips, so they're not used in desktops except where TDP matters (usually all-in-ones).
(Score: 2) by SlimmPickens on Thursday August 13 2015, @09:33PM
they just pick the more power-efficient ones for laptops, and the ones that handle high clocks for desktops.
Those are the same thing. I've read a few times that the best silicon of all goes into the high-end mobile products.
(Score: 1) by xav on Thursday August 13 2015, @01:47PM
I remember when bike makers used to make bikes. Bikes. Not mountain bikes, road bikes, racing bikes, BMX bikes, etc. Bikes.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 13 2015, @01:57PM
So what do you prefer, a phone that gets too hot to hold, until ten minutes later its battery is empty, or a server that breaks down as soon as more than ten people try to access it concurrently?
Do you also complain that car makers sell limousines, racing cars, minivans, pickups, and trucks, instead of just a single car for all uses?
(Score: 1) by chrysosphinx on Thursday August 13 2015, @03:23PM
I still remember 386sx which was a laptop processor and 386dx which was desktop/server processor. And historically, 8086 was used often as desktop processor for MS DOS while 80286 as a server processor, running Novell NetWare. At that time, I used a mainframe daily, too. So, market segmentation is quite a reality and have always been.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by FunnyItWorkedLastTime on Thursday August 13 2015, @06:03PM
Indeed, the 386 had a shitload of different versions, not just SX/DX, there were socketed(PGA & TCP), numerous SMD(QFP) versions in SX/DX/EX flavors, even whole upgrade boards to retrofit 286 mobos and spanning speeds from ~16Mhz up to ~50Mhz.
Intels weren't necessarily the fastest either(they topped out at 33Mz), lots of their competitors(AMD,CYRIX, TI et al) at the time made much higher clocked versions, and the socketed versions were mostly interchangeable.
Those companies also added their own deliberately obtuse models like the Cyrix CX486DLC, which was actually a 386 on a 2:1 clock multiplier and many others [cpu-world.com]
Of course if you were really serious you added an 80387 FPU, IIRC the Cyrix(now Via) one was actually quite good.
So if I really had to gripe about modern CPUs, besides the obvious lack of competition in the desktop space, it'd be the lack of socket compatible CPUs between vendors, my old Super Socket7 [wikipedia.org] board went all the way from a 75Mhz Pentium to a 500Mhz AMD K6-2 during its lifetime. *good times*
Kinda hoping there would be a universal 'SoC' socket a la AMDs AM1(only cross ARM/x86 and vendor compatible), but since AMD cancelled Skybridge [extremetech.com] it looks like the chance of that even partially happening is a pipe-dream.. Maybe Project ARA hmm..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 13 2015, @08:36PM
The 386SX was a 16 bit bus version of the 386DX (Which unlike the 486DX but like all pre-486 Intel chips didn't have an onboard FPU) intended for use with 'cheaper' chipsets (And possibly compatibility with 286 chipsets, although that may be incorrect.)
The SL was interestingly enough the first intel chip with the SMM which lead to the PPro+ writemsr issue.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 14 2015, @05:08AM
both were used in laptops and desktops. 386SXs were 386DXs with the math coprocessor disabled, most likely because that part of die was defective on those chips. 386SX was the cheap/budget chip. that's all.
then AMD came out with 386-50 (overclockable to 100MHz oooh! but those could keep up with Pentium 90s iirc too...)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 13 2015, @04:12PM
This should have be AMD's saving grace if they actually cared about being competitive: Merge all your processor lines together and segment them according to MHz over Power Efficiency and nothing else.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday August 13 2015, @04:22PM
phone processors != SoC
Today's SoCs do a lot more than a processor does. And today's median Intel CPUs are actually APUs like AMD's.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 13 2015, @01:39PM
Lenovo announced Thinkpads with this CPU already
(Score: 2, Informative) by xav on Thursday August 13 2015, @01:44PM
Yeah, Lenovo ThinkPad P50 and P70
http://news.lenovo.com/news+releases/lenovo-thinkpad-p50-p70.htm [lenovo.com]
(Score: 2) by basstard on Thursday August 13 2015, @01:51PM
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 13 2015, @02:49PM
Well, it's a Lenovo. You don't need the lack-of-money excuse to not buy it.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 13 2015, @02:00PM
So Intel + Lenovo, eh?
What I wonder is whether they use the Lenovo BIOS trick to spy on you or whether they opt for the Intel AMT spy engine for the job...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 13 2015, @04:57PM
What do you think about AMT?
Why don't you like it?
(Score: 2) by Geotti on Thursday August 13 2015, @07:11PM
If those suckers would run OS X, I'd buy two of them! Damn...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 13 2015, @09:45PM
Have you considered starting a SIG for that model? Hackintosh [google.com]
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by Geotti on Friday August 14 2015, @12:31AM
Uhm, I don't really understand what you mean by that. You mean put that in a signature on one of the corresponding forums?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 14 2015, @02:59AM
Not an actual techie?
Too young to have ever encountered the concept?
Special Interest Group [wikipedia.org]
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by Geotti on Friday August 14 2015, @03:28AM
I somehow didn't make the connection to confs like SIGGRAPH & Co. from this topic... Now that you mention it, it should have been obvious.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 14 2015, @05:02AM
Guy wants to run osx and you're surprised he's not a techie?
(Score: 2) by gallondr00nk on Thursday August 13 2015, @03:51PM
I wonder if it'll be anything like the leviathan that was the IBM ThinkPad A Series. The A30/A31 is perhaps the only laptop in the world that can take three hard drives.
Huge, comical, power guzzling monsters, but fuck me, they've got fantastic keyboards. If Lenovo released a modern version, I'd certainly buy it.
Not holding my breath though.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 13 2015, @03:05PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 13 2015, @04:19PM
All intels processors seem to have VPRO now.
It's a backdoor.
ECC should be standard.
(Score: 2) by meisterister on Thursday August 13 2015, @05:25PM
I'll actually +1 you for this, AC.
In the olden days, most high end consumer desktops (even the store-bought ones) could do ECC as long as the RAM supported it.
(May or may not have been) Posted from my K6-2, Athlon XP, or Pentium I/II/III.
(Score: 2) by theluggage on Thursday August 13 2015, @05:15PM
The Xeon has never been known as a graphics champ since it runs on servers,
...or in workstations where it is paired with a meaty discrete GPU or three so any integrated graphics is irrelevant.
However, in laptops they might be able to dynamically switch between the integrated GPU and the discrete GPU to save power when running on battery (Macs have been doing this since forever, I assume PCs have caught up by now).