Do you ever replace computers just for something newer and faster?

[redpoint5]

My 100 watt heater/Nvr/file server was moved to the basement months ago to keep that heat out of the office. It runs headless, but my plan is to replace it with a 13th gen I5 rig. It will be attached to my 3 displays since my brother in law donated the GPU to lure me into flight sim with him.

He’s been sending me videos of his flight lessons. I find flying boring unless doing something dangerous, so probably not a hobby for me to get into.

My 4 year old HP $280 laptop is cracking near the screen and is on the second battery. Meanwhile my wife’s 10 year old $1200 Lenovo Carbon laptop is as good as new. Will be picking up another cheap laptop on Black Friday.

[freebeard]

I was listening to a story about Foxconn exiting China, so I thought to look where my new Raspberry Pi came from:

www.sonypencoed.co.uk/the-latest-raspberry-pi-5-rolls-off-production-lines-at-sony-uk-tec/

Sony UK TEC began its partnership with Raspberry Pi in 2012 and has produced over 50 million units in the last eleven years, making this one of the most successful contract manufacturing partnerships for the European Sony site. In addition to the five core Raspberry Pi models, the Welsh-based facility also produces the full range of Pi peripheral products, as well as several other products for global third-party customers.

The only problem so far is that the cooling fan connector won't fit on the header pins.

[y2kbug]

Is a raspberry pi faster than my computer yet? im still using a inspiron 530 core2duo 2.40Ghz Win 10 64 that won't accept more than 3200mb of ram.

[Isaac Zachary]

Originally Posted by y2kbug

Is a raspberry pi faster than my computer yet? im still using a inspiron 530 core2duo 2.40Ghz Win 10 64 that won't accept more than 3200mb of ram.

Core Duo:2.4Ghz, 2 cores, up to 3.2GB RAM (slower)
Pi 5: 2.4Ghz, 4 cores, up to 8 GB RAM (faster)

However, that only applies if the apps are native. Core Duo is x86 but Raspberry Pi is ARM, so if you take an x86 app and try it on both it has a very good chance of being faster on the Core Duo since it has to be emulated on the Pi. But if you have two apps that do the exact same thing, except one is written for x86 and the other is written for ARM, then the ARM version on the Pi 5 would be faster than the x86 version of the same app on the Core Duo.

So in other words, on paper the Pi 5 is faster. But in reality it really depends on your apps.

[freebeard]

"But if you have two apps that do the exact same thing, except one is written for x86 and the other is written for ARM Linux, then the ARM version on the Pi 5 would be faster"

You can overclock the Raspberry Pi by editing the Config file.

[Isaac Zachary]

Originally Posted by freebeard

"But if you have two apps that do the exact same thing, except one is written for x86 and the other is written for ARM Linux, then the ARM version on the Pi 5 would be faster"

Why did you cross out ARM and add Linux? Linux is an operating system. ARM is an instruction set.

x86 Linux apps/programs need to be emulated on Linux on ARM. And as a result, they will tend to run slower even if the ARM processor is a bit faster. The same is true between Windows on x86 and ARM or between MacOS on x86 and ARM. Even though the operating system has the same name, the instruction set is entirely different, hence the need to emulate the app/program

On the other hand, even emulating an app/program from another operating system is going to be just as fast, more or less, if the other operating system is running on a CPU with the same instruction set that the app/program was written in. An x86 Windows app is going to run about as fast on Linux on x86 as it would on Windows on x86.

[freebeard]

Why did you cross out ARM and add Linux? Linux is an operating system. ARM is an instruction set.

Applications are written for the OS not the bare metal. Excepting in Assembly language. For instance, Various flavors of Linux are available for x86 processors. The least supported is Apple silicon, that's still in process.

About - Asahi Linux
About Asahi Linux. Asahi Linux is a project and community with the goal of porting Linux to Apple Silicon Macs, starting with the 2020 M1 Mac Mini, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro. Our goal is not just to make Linux run on these machines but to polish it to the point where it can be used as a daily OS.

[Isaac Zachary]

Originally Posted by freebeard

Applications are written for the OS not the bare metal.

That is incorrect. They are written for both the OS and the "bare metal." If that were true (that the only thing that counts is the OS), then any Windows 11 program would be just as functional and give the same performance on Windows on ARM as it would on Windows on x86. The same with MacOS and Linux. There also would be no reason for companies like Microsoft and Apple to make translation layers for programs written for x86 for their OS's to work on ARM. There also would be no reason to develop native ARM apps for those OS's, and the same is true of Linux.

[freebeard]

That is incorrect.

Keep in mind that my knowledge base is two decades old. That said....

High level languages are generic, compilers (and interpreters) produce machine readable code.

builtin.com/software-engineering-perspectives/compiler

Compilers are an essential part of software development. Compilers allow developers to write programs in high-level languages that humans can understand, but then convert that high-level language into a form that only a machine can read.

How Does a Compiler Work?
A compiler analyzes the source code and breaks it down into individual instructions that the computer can understand. In other words, a compiler turns human-readable program code into zeroes and ones.

1. Lexical Analysis -- ]First, the compiler performs a lexical analysis in which it breaks the source code down into a sequence of tokens that represent the individual elements of the program like keywords, operators and identifiers.
2. Syntactic and Semantic Analysis -- Next, the compiler performs a syntactic analysis. In this phase, it checks the source code for any syntax errors and ensures that it follows the correct language-specific rules and conventions. If any errors occur, the compiler throws an error and stops the compilation.
3. Optimization -- Once the compiler has successfully parsed and checked the source code for errors, it runs low-level optimization on the code to improve its performance. This can involve reducing the amount of memory the program uses or optimizing the code for speed by rearranging instructions or eliminating unnecessary operations.
4. Output Code Generation -- Finally, the compiler generates the machine code that corresponds to the original source code. This machine code lives in a binary file that the computer’s hardware can execute directly.

[Isaac Zachary]

Originally Posted by freebeard

Keep in mind that my knowledge base is two decades old. That said....

High level languages are generic, compilers (and interpreters) produce machine readable code.

builtin.com/software-engineering-perspectives/compiler

Yes, and we are getting closer to that point that everything is just high level language and will run on any processor. RISC-V promises to just take any high level language app and just run it without a problem.

But Windows on ARM still needs to emulate x86 Windows apps, high level language or not. And MacOS on the new M series (ARM based) chips also needs to emulate x86 MacOS apps, high language or not. And Linux faces the same challenges. There's no getting around it.

You can't just say that this ARM chip is faster on paper than this x86 chip, so my apps built for x86 running the same operating system are also going to be faster. It just doesn't work like that, and that is exactly what thousands of people are experiencing as we speak. Look at any reviewer reviewing the same x86 app on an x86 machine and an ARM machine running the same OS, and you'll see what I mean.