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As Computer Vendors Focus On Making Their Laptops Thinner and Lighter, They Are Increasingly Neglecting Performance Needs of Their Customers (vice.com)
Owen Williams, writing for Motherboard: The pursuit of thinner, lighter laptops, a trend driven by Apple, coinciding with laptops replacing desktops as our primary devices means we have screwed ourselves out of performance -- and it's not going to get better anytime soon. Thermal throttling is not something that Apple alone suffers from: every laptop out there will face thermal constraints at some point, but whether or not that's perceivable depends on a number of different variables including form factor and cooling capacity. When you're shopping for a laptop, you'll notice that manufacturers like Apple use phrases like "Turbo Boost" and "Up to 4.8 GHz" without really explaining what that means. The 4.8 GHz processor clock speed, which Apple quotes for the 15-inch MacBook Pro, is a 'best case' processor speed that's only achieved in short bursts when your computer requests it, subject to a number of conditions.
If you're playing a game like Fortnite, for example, the game will request your processor provide faster performance, and the processor will attempt to increase its operating frequency gradually to deliver the maximum available performance within the thermal envelope of your machine. That maximum is restricted by both power and thermal limits, which is where we run into issues: laptops tend to get hot because they're thinner, with limited space to dissipate that heat through the use of fans and heatsinks.
If you're playing a game like Fortnite, for example, the game will request your processor provide faster performance, and the processor will attempt to increase its operating frequency gradually to deliver the maximum available performance within the thermal envelope of your machine. That maximum is restricted by both power and thermal limits, which is where we run into issues: laptops tend to get hot because they're thinner, with limited space to dissipate that heat through the use of fans and heatsinks.
Actually, all I want is an RDP session into my server or server cluster to get performance. I can travel with a light, low power laptop that just has to render the RDP session. This is not something I'd recommend for gaming, but it very useful for actual high performance computing applications.
Hey, I'm really interested in new laptops, especially powerful, light ones with great battery duration. But I don't really fit in this crowd. I won't ever run "Fortnite" or indeed any video game on it. I will develop software for space satellites, I will write and deliver speeches, maybe I'll produce some videos.
Right now I own a whole fleet of Panasonic Toughbooks of different vintages, up to the Core i7 tablet with removable keyboard, because I can drop them and have them keep working, and it is actually specified to stand being hosed off from any angle. All were purchased used.
I don't want an ultra light thin phone. I just put them in a Unicorn Beetle case as soon as I get them, and they aren't thin after that. I want one with a battery door. This is difficult to get in a good phone these days. Similarly, I want to be able to replace the laptop battery and disk.
Bruce Perens.
Minor change:
What "power users" want is a transportable desktop [...]
I have an old 17" MacBook Pro. I'm not going to whip it out on a flight--at least not in coach--or at a trendy café. It goes from office to work-site and back.
Yes, I care about how light it is. But the trade-off is a bit different--I'm fine with the extra pound or so if it makes it faster or user-upgradable.
I am such a pro user. I'm typing this on a top of the line 2017 MBP.
The lack of ports is irritating - I need two separate dongles to connect the peripherals I need on a daily basis. The performance is OK, although not spectacular and poor value for money. It's reasonably quick on mains power but lackluster on battery, which lasts for about three hours of moderate use.
There are several show-stopping bugs that Apple apparently have no interest in responding to. kernel_task using 1000% of the CPU, dodgy keyboards, flakey multiple-monitor support (the window "manager" is perfectly content to scatter your windows unreachably off the screen if you date to (dis)connect at the wrong moment) and poor network discovery (try to load a file from a server? You must manually navigate to the server first to establish your credentials, even if it allows anon use or uses your login creds). These are every day hassles, but Apple doesn't care.
OS updates come and go with plenty of new shineys for idio - I mean, consumers - but bugger all for anyone trying to work. I don't need a voice assistant or sixteen thousand new ways to touch up my selfies, I need it to reliably remember what app I want to load a particular file type in, and to not fire up the jet engines every time I open Photoshop.
In short: the next laptop I buy isn't going to be a Mac.
Power users utilize all sorts of applications that are extremely CPU / GPU intensive that aren't necessarily games.
The list of applications that I use daily where horsepower is vastly preferable over slim & sexy:
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Premiere Pro
Adobe After Effects
Adobe Lightroom
Blender
Capture One Pro
Rhino
Zbrush
Keyshot
I'm typically using a desktop to run the aforementioned applications when I'm at home. When on the road, however, I carry a beefy laptop that is neither thin nor light. It weighs in at nearly thirteen pounds and has dimensions of 17"w x 12.7"d x 2"h. Most current configurations of the laptop fits an Intel i9-8950HK, 32GB Ram and an Nvidia 1080 GPU.
Not light, not thin, not even quiet. Definitely not cheap.
( as a bonus, if you wish it to, it will run the hell out of just about any game you throw at it )
But horsepower it has, which is what I want, so I'm willing to sacrifice light and thin to get it.