From Newsgroup: comp.arch

Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:

Concerning RAM, the PC (both consumer and company-use) desktop
mainstream has had between 1 DIMM and 2 DIMMs, with 8 or 16 RAM
devices each for about 2 decades, so the RAM growth directly reflects
the growth of the RAM devices, i.e., the advance in semiconductor
density. For me it was
RAM CPU clock cores
2003 1 GB 2000MHz 1
2008 4 GB 3000MHz 2
2015 16 GB 4200MHz (Turbo) 4
2024 64 GB 5100MHz (Turbo) 8

I was thinking of more "consumer" devices, where AFAIK laptops would
have had typically ~256MB in 2003 and ~16GB in 2026

My progression has been:

2004 256MB (upgraded to 1.25GB eventually)
2011 4GB
2013 4GB (upgraded to 12GB eventually) still in use
2021 40GB (upgraded from 8GB right after buying it)

[ It is striking tho that it was common for laptops to support a max of
8GB of RAM in 2007/2008, and we still have laptops coming out in 2026
with 8GB of RAM (and not even upgradable). ]

Maximum upgrade size for many laptops with DDR4 SO-DIMM sockets is
64GB, 128GB for some. For laptops with DDR5 SO-DIMM sockets, the
numbers are 128GB and 256GB. This does not say much about typical configurations.

What I currently find at geizhals.at is 2451 different laptops with
DDR5, 2336 of which have at least one slot. And there are 322 LPDDR5
and 1964 LPDDR5X laptops, with the RAM soldered in. One can only hope
that buyers are aware of non-upgradability of the latter sort.

Concerning persistent storage, somehow I have not run into the limits
of the HDD and SSD sizes for a while. This is different for people

From what I've seen, 256-512GB has been the usual size of SSDs for
laptops for the last 10 years or so.

Made for me:-) Of the 461GB on my rpool on my 2021 laptop, 334GB are
available. I plan to put in the old 250GB SSD again that the machine
came with on the next OS installation.

While gamers may represent an important market, it's somewhat marginal
in terms of units sold. The desktops I see used everyday in stores,
homes, and offices have moved from full/mid towers to NUC-sized thingies

It seems to me that most of those who decide against some kind of
tower usually make do with a laptop. Why buy another computer with
laptop components when you need a laptop anyway?

(and laptops are much thinner and lighter with a longer autonomy,
reflecting a reduced power consumption).

Laptops suffer from thinness at the detriment of functionality, yes.
Lighter, not recently. I recently looked around for a 13" laptop for
a collegue, and there was only the Lenovo x13 below 1kg, some Dell
below 1.1kg, and the remainder are heavyweights at >1.2kg. My 2021
laptop weighs <1.2kg, and it's upmarket brother <1kg (and I found that
upmarket brother refurbished on ebay for around EUR 500 (Fujitsu U9312
and U9311, if you are interested).

Outside of demanding games, most of what people do on their computer
could also be done just as well on a smartphone, if it weren't for the >convenience of a larger screen, a real keyboard, more ports to plug
things into, ... And I guess to some extent, this is by design: most of >those things are constrained to also be doable on a smartphone
(e.g. webpages) because lots of people just don't have a computer
at hand.

If so, one might use a smartphone on the desktop as is done with
laptops: Connect it to a docking station, and use your big keyboard
and big screen. The lack of desktop software for smartphones prevents
this scenario for now, though.

- anton
--
'Anyone trying for "industrial quality" ISA should avoid undefined behavior.'
Mitch Alsup, <c17fcd89-f024-40e7-a594-88a85ac10d20o@googlegroups.com>
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