Message-ID: <67897bb3@news.ausics.net> From: not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) Subject: Re: News : ARM Trying to Buy AmperComputing Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc References: <_hycnQxlN5kAphr6nZ2dnZfqn_SdnZ2d@earthlink.com> <36bf96a5-527c-1d8b-a93b-6788cdd589a2@example.net> <1PKcna3Yf6vdFhX6nZ2dnZfqnPidnZ2d@earthlink.com> <7b19252d-bfe8-9d48-0cd2-eb33e4a64179@example.net> User-Agent: tin/2.0.1-20111224 ("Achenvoir") (UNIX) (Linux/2.4.31 (i586)) NNTP-Posting-Host: news.ausics.net Date: 17 Jan 2025 07:35:47 +1000 Organization: Ausics - https://newsgroups.ausics.net Lines: 40 X-Complaints: abuse@ausics.net Path: csiph.com!news.bbs.nz!news.ausics.net!not-for-mail Xref: csiph.com comp.os.linux.misc:64469 D wrote: > On Thu, 16 Jan 2025, The Natural Philosopher wrote: >> On 16/01/2025 10:58, D wrote: >>> This is the truth! I've seen it in a few laptops. But I don't know if they >>> are energy efficient enough to make a huge difference. I get about 14 hours >>> or so from my 1.5 year old laptop. If arm would bump that to 25 I'd >>> seriously consider one! But last time I had a look, 1.5 years ago, the >>> battery time on arm laptops was far from impressive. >> >> There is some limit in terms of how much charge needs to get moved around >> how many transistors of at least a given size that relates ultimate MIPS per >> watt to a figure independent of architecture. >> >> The original ARM used very few transistors and an extremely well optimised >> instruction set to get the performance that it did at such low power. >> >> Arguably it is now in the same ballpark as a late model INTEL *86 or even >> RISC chip. > > This would correspond well with what I see in the market. It's a shame. > I'd like to see a cpu focused on low power consumption since laptops don't > need all the power they have today for regular day to day use. I'd much > rather have a slow laptop that lasts me 30-40 hours, than a monster that > runs out of power after 8 hours. ARM SoCs for "ultra-low power" exist for things like smart watches, laptop makers just don't use them. Note that the big screen on a laptop is a major power draw too, although a very niche product using a large eInk display with some of the new partial-update and colour features might be useful for some people. Finding the minimum-power ARM chip able to run Linux would be an interesting exercise. I gather Linux requires a minimum set of ARM extensions, as well as an MMU, which may exclude many of the SoC options intended for embedded applications. Software is as much of the problem as hardware. -- __ __ #_ < |\| |< _#