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Laptops With 128GB of RAM Are Here (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Brace yourself for laptops with 128GB of RAM because they're coming. Today, Lenovo announced its ThinkPad P52, which, along with that massive amount of memory, also features up to 6TB of storage, up to a 4K, 15.6-inch display, an eighth-gen Intel hexacore processor, and an Nvidia Quadro P3200 graphics card. The ThinkPad also includes two Thunderbolt three ports, HDMI 2.0, a mini DisplayPort, three USB Type-A ports, a headphone jack, and an Ethernet port. The company hasn't announced pricing yet, but it's likely going to try to compete with Dell's new 128GB-compatible workstation laptops. The Dell workstation laptops in question are the Precision 7730 and 7530, which are billed as "ready for VR" mobile workstations. According to TechRadar, "These again run with either 8th-gen Intel CPUs or Xeon processors, AMD Radeon WX or Nvidia Quadro graphics, and the potential to specify a whopping 128GB of 3200MHz system memory."
Modern web browser with multiple tabs.
... with 3 kB RAM, 8-colour TV display with 176x184 pixels, and magnetic tape storage.
I bet it is just as fun as this machine. At least for me.
People doing CAD, 3D/CGI, Scientific Computing, GPGPU/HighPerformanceComputing use monster workstations every day - Dual Xeon 8, 12 or 16 Core, multiple Nvdia Titan GPUs, 64 to 256GB RAM and so on. That's what you need for today's 3D DCC and CAD design workflows. Anything lower, and everything slows down to a crawl and you don't make your deadlines. These new laptops don't even satisfy what is really needed - at least 8 to 12 CPU cores and room for 2+ powerful GPUs - but will be good enough to get work done on the go. That's the segment they are aimed at - the one that cannot get anything much done on quadcore core i7 CPUs and mobile GPUs.
Why did the chicken cross the road? Because Elon Musk put an AI chip in its head.
Think of these kinda of machines less like laptops and more like portable workstations. Its easier to transport one of these around then it is having to transport everything needed to run a similar desktop. More "on-location" work can be done rather then having to wait to get back to a studio, for example. The battery in heavy use cases can be thought of as giving the ability to move the machine from outlet to outlet without having to shut down/power off.
Call it a portable workstation, if you like that. I need my "laptops" to move around with me - so I have a properly specced computer with me wherever I work. I don't necessarily need a lot of battery life. Just because you CAN'T see a usecase, doesn't mean there ISN"T one.
Call me when they have 640 GB of RAM, thought ought to be enough for anybody !!!
A.
The biggest CAD/3D models these days are for 3D buildings - like a new factory, airport or shopping center. Those CAD files can very easily become bigger than 64GB and not fit in RAM anymore. If you need to go to the construction site with a 98GB CAD model that can be inspected, how do you do that without a laptop that has 128GB RAM? Do you take a 35,000 USD dual Xeon CAD workstation with 3 GPUs that weighs 40 to 50 lbs and carry it to the construction site in a van? That's what these new laptops are for. Opening huge 3D CAD files away from the office desk - and very likely at a construction site.
Why did the chicken cross the road? Because Elon Musk put an AI chip in its head.
Lots:
Vagrant.
Virtualbox.
Developer tools.
Photo/video editing.
Sound editing.
A 128 GB machine will be ideal for a developer who has it for his/her daily driver, and who has to show that their code works on some test VM bases via Vagrant. This gets rid of the "it works on my machine, but not in production" type of bugs.
Even if the RAM is not needed, it works as a cache, making I/O faster.
I felt the same when 1G ram became a thing...
Composers who use large orchestral sample libraries, for instance.
I'll buy one for $300 in about 5 years!
Dear Intel,
Release a mobile chipset that supports LPDDR4 so vendors can support more than 16GB of RAM without using a memory controller using 2-3x the power of the low power chips. Lots of RAM in laptops would be great but not at the cost of battery life.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
The new Windows version coming soon. You'll need at least 128GB for it.
640k is actually a lot of storage, and enough for most (even modern) application to run their core logic. What is filling most of the RAM today is things like pictures, large data sets prefetched data. A lot of the stuff in active RAM may never be used in the application. Being that Unicode data for hello world uses two bytes for character in generals makes strings 50% inefficient.
For the time where screen resolutions were 320x200 4 color, getting data from a disk took minutes. 640k was enough for anyone. But that was for the programs of the time.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Wanting good battery life is not about sitting in a cafe all day. I want a portable computer that I can use places away from my office/desk for long periods of time without hunting for a power outlet. I also want to use my laptop and not have it throttle way down on the battery. It would also really nice for it to be light so it doesn't weigh down my bag.
Portables have aspects with inverse proportions. Intel dropping the ball after Skylake has meant any manufacturers wanting high performance parts in a small envelope can't pack a lot of RAM unless they sacrifice battery life by using much higher power draw DDR4.
A higher power draw means lower battery life (for the same sized battery) and likely a lot of thermal throttling issues. DDR4 uses several times as much power as LPDDR3E used in the MacBook lines. Even if you are willing to sacrifice the battery life, the thermals would be a major issue even on AC power. The higher power RAM/controller would eat up the thermal budget for the CPU meaning it would enter TurboBoost mode less often or worst case actually stay throttled down.
The ThinkPad in the story is a brick. This means thermals and battery life probably aren't major concerns. From the looks of it actual portability isn't much of a concern either.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.