The Clevo OEM laptops that make up most of System76 laptop offerings are getting worse and louder over time. I’ve had two successive Oryx pros that both had persistent hardware issues that outlasted my warranty coverage, the 2nd of which was simply producing more heat than 3 air cooled heat pipes could ever hope to account for. I know why they stopped selling that particular model of Oryx something like 3 months before the next one was available.
Yeah its a shame they aren’t better manufacturers out there for this sort of market. Even first party hardware seems pretty trash these days long gone are the days when a boutique PC manufacturer would go out of their way to make something that stands out. Falcon Northwest is the last holdout I know of and even they are nothing like they used to be.
Why would you want an arm laptop? (legit question, not trying to be a dick) Compatibility is already going to be questionable since its running linux, adding a low power mobile focused processor would make it such a niche product it would be all but useless outside of web apps or bespoke software meant just for ARM PC’s (of which are very few).
They are very purpose built because ARM is not the best at general purpose PC use so it’s generally only used in PC’s when specifically needed or asked for.
Modern mobile processors are extremely powerful, and way more power efficient than desktop chips. Many Linux distros have ARM variants.
And (AFAIK) it’s mostly because they are tuned for that, whereas laptop processors outside Apple have some overzealous boosting configs/clocks these days.
You are not wrong though. Developing and supporting them (as a company) would be very labor intense, so no one really wants to make that jump beyond Qualcomm/windows.
I’ve had so many different laptops over the past ~10 years ranging from Dell, ThinkPad, System76, Asus, and now a newer MacBook. I’ve used Windows, Linux, and Mac OS as a daily driver OS. The only Arm chip I’ve had is my current MacBook, but to answer your question, its power efficiency is unmatched compared to anything else I’ve ever had… resulting in crazy battery life as well as a device that doesn’t try to melt a hole through my lap whenever I try and do something even remotely taxing on it.
The efficiency had better be good that’s specifically what the RISC (arm stands for Advanced RISC Machine) architecture was designed for but that’s also why its terrible for general purpose. ARM is also proprietary which always stifles progress because of licensing (greed). It’s one of the reasons that RISC-V is becoming popular despite being less efficient.
This is kinda a myth. ARM is fine for HPC or desktop use (hence there have been very high power ARM designs like Fujitsu A64FX, Ampere Altra or the European Rhea), x86 is fine for low power, it’s just more about how the specific chip is tuned for power/raw performance/price.
Apple seems very good (partially) because they pay top dollar for power efficiency and a cutting edge low power process. Most x86 laptop chips make more significant cost tradeoffs, with cheaper dies, higher clocks, more aggressive power curves and so on.
“With RISC, a central processing unit (CPU) implements the processor design principle of simplified instructions that can do less but can execute more rapidly.”
None of this is to say RISC or by extension ARM is bad, just that where everything currently is it’s not a good choice for everyday computing. By design its as light weight and simple as possible so that it can perform its specific function faster and more efficiently with less overhead than a more general purpose processor.
“finally” as if system 76 doesn’t already exist.
System 76 is on another continent though.
The Clevo OEM laptops that make up most of System76 laptop offerings are getting worse and louder over time. I’ve had two successive Oryx pros that both had persistent hardware issues that outlasted my warranty coverage, the 2nd of which was simply producing more heat than 3 air cooled heat pipes could ever hope to account for. I know why they stopped selling that particular model of Oryx something like 3 months before the next one was available.
Yeah its a shame they aren’t better manufacturers out there for this sort of market. Even first party hardware seems pretty trash these days long gone are the days when a boutique PC manufacturer would go out of their way to make something that stands out. Falcon Northwest is the last holdout I know of and even they are nothing like they used to be.
Framework’s doing a pretty good job standing out for laptops anyways, with their user-repairability focus.
i think system 76 is x86_64 not arm?
Why would you want an arm laptop? (legit question, not trying to be a dick) Compatibility is already going to be questionable since its running linux, adding a low power mobile focused processor would make it such a niche product it would be all but useless outside of web apps or bespoke software meant just for ARM PC’s (of which are very few).
Also System 76 does arm as well https://system76.com/desktops/thelio-astra-a1-n1/configure
They are very purpose built because ARM is not the best at general purpose PC use so it’s generally only used in PC’s when specifically needed or asked for.
Modern mobile processors are extremely powerful, and way more power efficient than desktop chips. Many Linux distros have ARM variants.
And (AFAIK) it’s mostly because they are tuned for that, whereas laptop processors outside Apple have some overzealous boosting configs/clocks these days.
You are not wrong though. Developing and supporting them (as a company) would be very labor intense, so no one really wants to make that jump beyond Qualcomm/windows.
I’ve had so many different laptops over the past ~10 years ranging from Dell, ThinkPad, System76, Asus, and now a newer MacBook. I’ve used Windows, Linux, and Mac OS as a daily driver OS. The only Arm chip I’ve had is my current MacBook, but to answer your question, its power efficiency is unmatched compared to anything else I’ve ever had… resulting in crazy battery life as well as a device that doesn’t try to melt a hole through my lap whenever I try and do something even remotely taxing on it.
The efficiency had better be good that’s specifically what the RISC (arm stands for Advanced RISC Machine) architecture was designed for but that’s also why its terrible for general purpose. ARM is also proprietary which always stifles progress because of licensing (greed). It’s one of the reasons that RISC-V is becoming popular despite being less efficient.
This is kinda a myth. ARM is fine for HPC or desktop use (hence there have been very high power ARM designs like Fujitsu A64FX, Ampere Altra or the European Rhea), x86 is fine for low power, it’s just more about how the specific chip is tuned for power/raw performance/price.
Apple seems very good (partially) because they pay top dollar for power efficiency and a cutting edge low power process. Most x86 laptop chips make more significant cost tradeoffs, with cheaper dies, higher clocks, more aggressive power curves and so on.
It’s not though, ARM themselves admit it. https://www.arm.com/glossary/risc.
“With RISC, a central processing unit (CPU) implements the processor design principle of simplified instructions that can do less but can execute more rapidly.”
None of this is to say RISC or by extension ARM is bad, just that where everything currently is it’s not a good choice for everyday computing. By design its as light weight and simple as possible so that it can perform its specific function faster and more efficiently with less overhead than a more general purpose processor.
Geeks for geeks has a good writeup on it.
https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/computer-organization-risc-and-cisc/