Comment on Dell says the quiet part out loud: Consumers don't actually care about AI PCs — "AI probably confuses them more than it helps them"

Electricd@lemmybefree.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

• ulterno@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

  I guess an NPU is better of being a PCIe peripheral then?
  And it can then have their specialised RAM too.

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  • Electricd@lemmybefree.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

    Sorry, I’m not a hardware expert at all

    When you’re talking about the PCIe peripheral, you’re talking about a separate dedicated graphics card or something else?

    I guess the main point of NPUs are that they are tiny and built in

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    • ulterno@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

      When you’re talking about the PCIe peripheral, you’re talking about a separate dedicated graphics card or something else?

      Yes, similar to what a PCIe Graphics Card does.
      A PCIe slot is the slot in a desktop motherboard that lets you fit various things like networking (ethernet, Wi-Fi and even RTC specialised stuff) cards, sound cards, graphics cards, SATA/SAS adapters, USB adapters and all other kinds of stuff.

      I guess the main point of NPUs are that they are tiny and built in

      GPUs are also available built-in. Some of them are even tiny.
      Go 11-12 years back in time and you’ll see video processing units embedded into the Motherboard, instead of in the CPU package.
      Eventually some people will want more powerful NPUs with better suited RAM for neural workloads (GPUs have their own type of RAM too), not care about the NPU in the CPU package and will feel like they are uselessly paying for it. Others will not require an NPU and will feel like they are uselessly paying for it.

      So, much better to have NPUs be made separately in different tiers, similar to what is done with GPUs rn.

      And even external (PCIe) Graphics Cards can be thin and light instead of being a fat package. It’s usually just the (i) extra I/O ports and (ii) the cooling fins+fans that make them fat.

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      • Electricd@lemmybefree.net ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

        Thanks for your answer

        So, much better to have NPUs be made separately in different tiers, similar to what is done with GPUs rn.

        Overall yea, but built-in graphics are remarkably efficient and they have the added benefit to be here even if you didn’t plan that use initially. I’m glad to be able to play video games on my laptop that was meant to be use for work only

        Similarly, I had no interest in getting an NPU for this laptop but I found some use to it (well, when it’ll finally support what I want to do)

        Manufacturers will never include a niche option, or will overprice it. Built in allows to get that directly

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