Live rounds are a bit much, but where are the water cannons? Tasers? Stun batons? What about that taser shotgun that was featured on Gizmodo (I think) a few days ago? Tear gas!
I don't quite understand why this stuff wasn't brought out during the first night of riots...
"The limitation on external screens ultimately comes from the on-CPU Intel HD Graphics which only support one DisplayPort and a maximum of two displays (including the built-in screen)."
Do you have a source for this? Even Intel's 4500MHD (back from the last Core2Duo mobile generation) was already capable of pushing two screens of 1080p, or possibly even one at 2560x1600 and another at 1080p at the same time (need to get my hands on one of the bigger screens to find out). I doubt that the latest gen is incapable of driving two external displays, at least at 1080p... 2x2560x1600 seems much more likely.
"As for the outputs, wouldn't you then naturally use the additional outputs on the card? I don't see much sense in sending anything but the laptop screen - if in use at all - back to the laptop."
True, there's not much sense in it - but that's a good question for someone in the know: Do outputs on an external Thunderbolt graphics card require any additional bandwidth on the "root" Thunderbolt port?
"And to answer the summary's closing question: because it means I can carry an ultra-portable (MacBook Air) when I travel and plug it in at home to give it a much needed graphics boost for use at home."
But you will likely find that many (if not most) motherboard chipsets do not support them. This is a chipset and bios coding issue more than anything else."
Isn't that server RAM?
A few 8GB DDR3-SODIMMs have showed up (not really interested in anything other than laptops myself, these days), but Sandy Bridge memory controllers seem to be a bit finicky, with Intel only having specified one or two dual core chips and a few of the quad cores for over 8GB of memory.
The regular desktop space should probably have 8GB DIMMs too by now...
The 9-cell on the regular T420 has a capacity of 94Wh - with an average power consumption of 10W (idle is 7W, more or less the same as your T420s, most likely), that's a runtime of 9 hours and more - 12h+ if you're just reading PDFs. 3-6h vs. 9-12h is pretty much the difference between taking a charger everywhere and just leaving the charger at home... the latter is very comfortable.
It's unfortunate, yes. Even among Thinkpads, I had to search for quite a while until I found the right balance of battery life, performance and heat... it's gotten a bit easier with the latest *20 series (Mainly because nVidia Optimus eliminates the battery life problem in most models - even the W520 gets 7+ hours now), but there are still pitfalls like the T420s, with its absolutely abysmal battery life.
Of course the old hardware still works just fine, as long as you use the same old software. My experience has been that most mainstream software, like (especially!) browsers, is becoming quite bloated and doesn't run well on older hardware any more. FF4 gave me a nice boost over FF3 on my older Pentium M hardware, but unfortunately it's been downhill from there:(
Hell, even Slashdot is noticeably faster on current hardware:'(
There's a huge performance difference even for consumption though. I have both netbook class hardware (Pentium M Banias/Dothan, and Atoms in both N270 and N280 flavors) and notebook class hardware (typing this from a Core2Duo machine with 2+Ghz and 8 gigs of RAM), and the performance difference, even with just Chrome or Firefox open, is HUGE. Opening and closing tabs, loading web pages (especially reopening an entire browser session), loading Flash video... the netbooks and older hardware have absolutely no chance, even though they're all running XP (Win7 is another little bit slower) and maxed out at 2GB of RAM.
Things that are instant on the Core2Duo 8GB system take multiple seconds on the older hardware, which is just annoying after a while.
Add another gig of RAM (don't think that T60 board will support 4?) and you'll get another nice speed boost. I upgraded my X200 from 2GB to 8GB and my girlfriend's R61 to 4GB, and the difference is amazing - Windows 7's RAM-precaching ("Superfetch") actually works quite well, and makes everything extremely snappy. Swapping is also strongly reduced - program launches are much faster, because the program is only read from disk into memory, instead of parts of the active RAM having to be written to disk to make room for the newly launched program.
Yes, Win7 is a memory hog, but get enough RAM and it flies (faster than XP with the same amount of RAM, at least on my X200)... not to mention being much more stable and having better driver support than WinXP x64.
Re:Joe Sixpack isn't even using his 1080p right
on
Beyond HDTV
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· Score: 1
"Let me explain: scaling is massive pain in the ass. Whatever content you play back (or other things like fixed-resolution consoles or older PC games), you'll inevitable have to scale it. This sucks."
Why? Even if you have a 16k by 12k display, the original Starcraft is still going to look like ass. Sure, it'll look like it's played on an actual 640x480 display instead of being filled with interpolation artifacts, but is the difference *in this use case* even remotely worth the trouble?
Yes, an ultra-high resolution display and proper scaling at the OS and application level would be helpful for other problems (people who want to use scaling on their desktops, for instance), but old source material will still look just as crappy.
I'd be satisfied if someone would just make a decent laptop (read: Thinkpad) with a 12" 1600x900 display... or 13-14" 1080p.:)
Re:Joe Sixpack isn't even using his 1080p right
on
Beyond HDTV
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· Score: 1
Agreed. In laptops, the power consumption advantages are worth it, but on a desktop monitor? Decent CCFL backlights look just as good as edge-lit LED display backlights...
Re:Joe Sixpack isn't even using his 1080p right
on
Beyond HDTV
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· Score: 1
Not only Joe - even highly technical users, while able to appreciate the benefits of 720p or 1080p, would probably be hard pressed for more resolution.
720p looks fantastic already (hell, even well-encoded 480p is just fine for normal viewing distances), and in the jump to 1080p the returns are already diminished. Going even higher is going to be even less noticeable for all but the biggest available screens (like 60"+), and even then most people won't see the difference.
"These drives have actually been on the market for well over a year now, and I was (un)lucky enough to pick one up last year when my local Fry's Electronics got them in stock."
The 9.5mm, 1TB version? Over a YEAR? Even Samsung's 9.5mm 1TB drive only came out a few weeks back... it only came into regular stock last week. WD's version isn't even showing up in online shops yet.
Many people refer to SSDs as more reliable when they're talking about laptop drives... when you drop your laptop, it's much easier to kill a hard drive than an SSD:)
Still true with many systems today - especially laptops with high powered graphics. Put your coffee next to the exhaust vent and it'll stay warm much longer:)
"have you tried the intel i3 (i5, i7) cpus? and their chipsets?
I doubted it until I got one. go touch the heatsink on the i3 (any modern chipset) northbridge. (do they still call them NB's? maybe not.) at any rate, its cold to the touch even with the system doing things! totally shocked me.
I can turn the fan OFF on my i5 system. I can run 100% fanless for minutes on end, even half an hour or more if I'm doing light office/web work. even just one gen before (the core2 duos and quads) were so much hotter and these new chips and processors are almost passive coolable!"
Interesting, I assume this is on desktops? The laptop space is more or less the other way around - where Core2Duo Penryn 25W systems would run completely fanless at ~45C, Core iX (both first and second gen, the 35W GPU-on-chip versions, which are more or less equivalent to the older 25W+GPU TDP versions, I suppose) shoot up to 60-70 quickly with the same workload (just idling, reading PDFs and occasionally loading a new web page). It's even worse with CPU+GPU load - the Core2Duo systems top out at 70C in a warm room, while many Core iX systems are at 90+...
Just take a look at systems like the Thinkpad X series... cool and quiet on Core2Duo, hot and loud on Core iX (to the extent of the processor having to go into thermal throttling mode). The Sandy Bridge i3s seem to be alright, but they're so cut down on features that they're not particularly usable.
"Subjectively, my dual ARM Xoom delivers far more compute power while eating less power than my Atom 450 netbook (Dell mini 10)."
Are you sure about that? I love ARM chips as much as the next guy (heavy Android user), but I get the feeling that most of the processing (be it rendering web pages or whatever) is offloaded to the GPU and other supplementary chips... last gen's ARM chips were barely fast enough to render DivX content in software.
Are there even any tasks on tablets that are particularly CPU-intensive? There's not much in the way of multitasking (what with background apps being hibernated and so on), and single apps usually just peg the CPU until they're done... sure, iPads/iPhones and Android devices are pretty snappy, but they're still severely limited by processing power, especially in comparison to chips other than Atoms - which are also getting more and more efficient.
I bet if you put a dual core ARM in a netbook and souped it up to the same raw CPU power as an Atom, it'd draw pretty much the same amount of power and require as much cooling... Or am I missing something? Links for self-study would be much appreciated in that case;)
Slashdot Mirror
Live rounds are a bit much, but where are the water cannons? Tasers? Stun batons? What about that taser shotgun that was featured on Gizmodo (I think) a few days ago? Tear gas!
I don't quite understand why this stuff wasn't brought out during the first night of riots...
"The limitation on external screens ultimately comes from the on-CPU Intel HD Graphics which only support one DisplayPort and a maximum of two displays (including the built-in screen)."
Do you have a source for this? Even Intel's 4500MHD (back from the last Core2Duo mobile generation) was already capable of pushing two screens of 1080p, or possibly even one at 2560x1600 and another at 1080p at the same time (need to get my hands on one of the bigger screens to find out). I doubt that the latest gen is incapable of driving two external displays, at least at 1080p... 2x2560x1600 seems much more likely.
"As for the outputs, wouldn't you then naturally use the additional outputs on the card? I don't see much sense in sending anything but the laptop screen - if in use at all - back to the laptop."
True, there's not much sense in it - but that's a good question for someone in the know: Do outputs on an external Thunderbolt graphics card require any additional bandwidth on the "root" Thunderbolt port?
Hmmm, I suppose you're right. Just saying, with Apple's track record: It wouldn't surprise me if there was some magical compatibility issue...
"And to answer the summary's closing question: because it means I can carry an ultra-portable (MacBook Air) when I travel and plug it in at home to give it a much needed graphics boost for use at home."
Sure, that would be great - but Apple crippled the MBA with a downsized Thunderbolt port. http://www.slashgear.com/macbook-air-gets-half-power-thunderbolt-29168292/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+slashgear+(SlashGear)
If the thing can't even handle two external screens, I doubt it'll handle an external screen and an external graphics card...
"And they do make 8Gb and even 16Gb DIMMS:
http://www.amazon.com/Kingston-ValueRAM-240-pin-PC3-8500-registered/dp/B003C015ZY
But you will likely find that many (if not most) motherboard chipsets do not support them. This is a chipset and bios coding issue more than anything else."
Isn't that server RAM?
A few 8GB DDR3-SODIMMs have showed up (not really interested in anything other than laptops myself, these days), but Sandy Bridge memory controllers seem to be a bit finicky, with Intel only having specified one or two dual core chips and a few of the quad cores for over 8GB of memory.
The regular desktop space should probably have 8GB DIMMs too by now...
The 9-cell on the regular T420 has a capacity of 94Wh - with an average power consumption of 10W (idle is 7W, more or less the same as your T420s, most likely), that's a runtime of 9 hours and more - 12h+ if you're just reading PDFs. 3-6h vs. 9-12h is pretty much the difference between taking a charger everywhere and just leaving the charger at home... the latter is very comfortable.
OK, maybe it's just on Windows... :p
It's unfortunate, yes. Even among Thinkpads, I had to search for quite a while until I found the right balance of battery life, performance and heat... it's gotten a bit easier with the latest *20 series (Mainly because nVidia Optimus eliminates the battery life problem in most models - even the W520 gets 7+ hours now), but there are still pitfalls like the T420s, with its absolutely abysmal battery life.
Of course the old hardware still works just fine, as long as you use the same old software. My experience has been that most mainstream software, like (especially!) browsers, is becoming quite bloated and doesn't run well on older hardware any more. FF4 gave me a nice boost over FF3 on my older Pentium M hardware, but unfortunately it's been downhill from there :(
Hell, even Slashdot is noticeably faster on current hardware :'(
There's a huge performance difference even for consumption though. I have both netbook class hardware (Pentium M Banias/Dothan, and Atoms in both N270 and N280 flavors) and notebook class hardware (typing this from a Core2Duo machine with 2+Ghz and 8 gigs of RAM), and the performance difference, even with just Chrome or Firefox open, is HUGE. Opening and closing tabs, loading web pages (especially reopening an entire browser session), loading Flash video... the netbooks and older hardware have absolutely no chance, even though they're all running XP (Win7 is another little bit slower) and maxed out at 2GB of RAM.
Things that are instant on the Core2Duo 8GB system take multiple seconds on the older hardware, which is just annoying after a while.
Actually, (most?) T-Series Core2Duo (like the T7100/7300 and so on in the Thinkpad T61) are 35W CPUs. The newer P-XXXX Core2Duos are 25W...
As for 15W total power consumption during light usage... the ones with Intel integrated graphics drop that down to below 10W. :)
Add another gig of RAM (don't think that T60 board will support 4?) and you'll get another nice speed boost. I upgraded my X200 from 2GB to 8GB and my girlfriend's R61 to 4GB, and the difference is amazing - Windows 7's RAM-precaching ("Superfetch") actually works quite well, and makes everything extremely snappy. Swapping is also strongly reduced - program launches are much faster, because the program is only read from disk into memory, instead of parts of the active RAM having to be written to disk to make room for the newly launched program.
Yes, Win7 is a memory hog, but get enough RAM and it flies (faster than XP with the same amount of RAM, at least on my X200)... not to mention being much more stable and having better driver support than WinXP x64.
"Let me explain: scaling is massive pain in the ass. Whatever content you play back (or other things like fixed-resolution consoles or older PC games), you'll inevitable have to scale it. This sucks."
Why? Even if you have a 16k by 12k display, the original Starcraft is still going to look like ass. Sure, it'll look like it's played on an actual 640x480 display instead of being filled with interpolation artifacts, but is the difference *in this use case* even remotely worth the trouble?
Yes, an ultra-high resolution display and proper scaling at the OS and application level would be helpful for other problems (people who want to use scaling on their desktops, for instance), but old source material will still look just as crappy.
I'd be satisfied if someone would just make a decent laptop (read: Thinkpad) with a 12" 1600x900 display... or 13-14" 1080p. :)
Agreed. In laptops, the power consumption advantages are worth it, but on a desktop monitor? Decent CCFL backlights look just as good as edge-lit LED display backlights...
Not only Joe - even highly technical users, while able to appreciate the benefits of 720p or 1080p, would probably be hard pressed for more resolution.
720p looks fantastic already (hell, even well-encoded 480p is just fine for normal viewing distances), and in the jump to 1080p the returns are already diminished. Going even higher is going to be even less noticeable for all but the biggest available screens (like 60"+), and even then most people won't see the difference.
Wrong thread? o.O
"These drives have actually been on the market for well over a year now, and I was (un)lucky enough to pick one up last year when my local Fry's Electronics got them in stock."
The 9.5mm, 1TB version? Over a YEAR? Even Samsung's 9.5mm 1TB drive only came out a few weeks back... it only came into regular stock last week. WD's version isn't even showing up in online shops yet.
WTF are you talking about?
Well... yeah. But suddenly and vigorously enough to cause a head crash or a shattered platter? I doubt it :p
That's not normal use... SOP for laptops with spinning drives is not to wake them from standby until they're safely on the desk or your lap.
"That isn't reliability, to me. That's durability."
Agreed. Some people don't understand this, hence, "SSDs are much more reliable!!!!one11!"
Many people refer to SSDs as more reliable when they're talking about laptop drives... when you drop your laptop, it's much easier to kill a hard drive than an SSD :)
Still true with many systems today - especially laptops with high powered graphics. Put your coffee next to the exhaust vent and it'll stay warm much longer :)
"have you tried the intel i3 (i5, i7) cpus? and their chipsets?
I doubted it until I got one. go touch the heatsink on the i3 (any modern chipset) northbridge. (do they still call them NB's? maybe not.) at any rate, its cold to the touch even with the system doing things! totally shocked me.
I can turn the fan OFF on my i5 system. I can run 100% fanless for minutes on end, even half an hour or more if I'm doing light office/web work. even just one gen before (the core2 duos and quads) were so much hotter and these new chips and processors are almost passive coolable!"
Interesting, I assume this is on desktops? The laptop space is more or less the other way around - where Core2Duo Penryn 25W systems would run completely fanless at ~45C, Core iX (both first and second gen, the 35W GPU-on-chip versions, which are more or less equivalent to the older 25W+GPU TDP versions, I suppose) shoot up to 60-70 quickly with the same workload (just idling, reading PDFs and occasionally loading a new web page). It's even worse with CPU+GPU load - the Core2Duo systems top out at 70C in a warm room, while many Core iX systems are at 90+...
Just take a look at systems like the Thinkpad X series... cool and quiet on Core2Duo, hot and loud on Core iX (to the extent of the processor having to go into thermal throttling mode). The Sandy Bridge i3s seem to be alright, but they're so cut down on features that they're not particularly usable.
"Subjectively, my dual ARM Xoom delivers far more compute power while eating less power than my Atom 450 netbook (Dell mini 10)."
Are you sure about that? I love ARM chips as much as the next guy (heavy Android user), but I get the feeling that most of the processing (be it rendering web pages or whatever) is offloaded to the GPU and other supplementary chips... last gen's ARM chips were barely fast enough to render DivX content in software.
Are there even any tasks on tablets that are particularly CPU-intensive? There's not much in the way of multitasking (what with background apps being hibernated and so on), and single apps usually just peg the CPU until they're done... sure, iPads/iPhones and Android devices are pretty snappy, but they're still severely limited by processing power, especially in comparison to chips other than Atoms - which are also getting more and more efficient.
I bet if you put a dual core ARM in a netbook and souped it up to the same raw CPU power as an Atom, it'd draw pretty much the same amount of power and require as much cooling... Or am I missing something? Links for self-study would be much appreciated in that case ;)