Hi Purism Team,
do you have plans to update The Librem 13/15 to 8th gen Intel Quad Core Mobile CPUs in the near future?
are you expecting significant changes to ME, which would mean a lot of work for your?
Cheers
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Hi Purism Team,
I’d also like to know when we’ll see an 8th gen Intel Quad Core in 13/15 models. 6500u is very inefficient for heavy compute applications. I understand pushing the mobile line is important but don’t let it distract from the main objective.
Cheers
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I have been running a mental back of the napkin experiment in this. I am thinking that part of this decession may depend on what changes may be made to the chip sets and blobs that could break all the work that has been done to get the 6th gen chips to work. I would say that until the coreboot team has a grasp of how IME and other stuff is operation in the 8th gen chips that a speed bump is off the table. but purism may have a diffrent answer than i do. the basic thig here is do you want purism spending the limited capitol resources they have working on the phone and getting it 6th gen stuff to be fully operational of to allow the distraction of reverse endangering a new CPU?
I’ve talked with them on the forum before, and really, having to keep up with every new processor released is extremely cumbersome I do believe. They should focus on having a complete product before moving on to the next thing - otherwise we may never see a truly complete device because technology simply keeps moving forward faster than they can keep up.
If they were to upgrade to the latest processors I’m pretty sure they’d have to start-over on a few things regarding getting rid of the Intel ME etc. Those aren’t universal changes that can just be copy/pasted to every new processor…
Anyway, I prefer they focus on making a finished product. If you want the latest and greatest in performance hardware then I don’t even understand why Purism would be your focus - other companies produce laptops that are far more powerful for a lower price. Purism is all about being a tinfoil hat and wanting a computer that is NSA-proofed running only open-source software - and a tinfoil hat is pretty much what I proudly am.
If you want open-source and security, Purism is great! But if you’re looking for the latest and greatest and most powerful computers, I’d be looking at OriginPC or Alienware or ASUS or better yet, making your own PC using PCPartPicker or something if I were you.
So yeah. I want the Purism team to focus on making a completed product first - to shoot for that Purism “Purist Standard” on their roadmap. I don’t think they’ll ever get there if they have to fall-back to the Coreboot / Intel ME step every time Intel releases a new chip.
Lastly… why are you even doing “heavy compute applications” on a Purism laptop? You should probably get a separate powerhouse machine for that kind of thing. These laptops are for secure browsing and the likes, not playing Crysis on max settings or something (is that even still used as a reference for computer performance?)
I still have a Sandy Bridge laptop and it runs browsing and most other applications fine, just can’t throw modern ultra-intensive games and stuff at it. Though that’s probably more the fault of my old GPU and not the CPU - the CPU usually still runs fine.
I think you guys are trying to get a laptop to do a high-performance desktop’s job.
Performance-wise, the very first suggestion I would ever give a manufacturer is to make it fatter to allow more ventilation. The Librems look rather slim, and this “laptops need to be slim as possible!” trend has led to hardware being throttled to all hell for poor heat dissipation reasons. My current laptop is rather fat and has great ventilation with high-powered fans, thus the processor can clock-up to over 4.5Ghz without being too bothered. This is probably a big reason why my laptop still performs fine to me after having it for over 6 years.
Good ventilation and performance fans are always the first things to go because people don’t want to put up with bigger dimensions, more weight, or fan noise. These are so commonly thrown out - and it cuts deep into performance stats.
I very strongly protest the idea of laptops needing to be slim as a razor and light as a feather. I want performance and if it means increasing the dimensions and weight a little bit then so be it. Unfortunately it seems that tech trends won’t agree with that.
Now, if you can afford a desktop AND a laptop… having a thin, lightweight, and quiet laptop is fine. You probably only need the laptop for mobile on-the-go things and secure business. For things that are high-performance, you’ll do those things on your desktop.
But me, I didn’t have the money to do both back then. So I bought a single computer that exists to be a compromise between the two - a “desktop replacement” laptop. They’re laptops that are fat and noisy and only have about an hour of battery life, but damn has it carried me through the years.
Anyway… TL;DR: Please don’t pressure Purism to drop their progress on Skylake just to pursue a shiny new processor before they even finish their Skylake work.I want to see a truly completed product eventually and I fear that’ll never happen if they constantly have to ditch their progress.
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