@iska It's been over for a while now, depending on what hardware you're buying and what you're looking for. But these Ryzen 6xxx machines with Pluton seem to be the first mass market x86 machines which ship without the ability to run anything except Windows by design.
@dushman @iska I wouldn't doubt it. But I was talking about OEMs and their decisions, not AMD necessarily. (not that I have the kindest opinion of AMD these days for... other reasons)
@allison @iska @coyote
And pluton seems like a hard glowing backdoor more than anything
@dushman @iska @coyote Still kinda fucks me up that Apple currently has the freest mass market hardware from a surveillance/hardware backdoor perspective.
@allison @iska @coyote @dushman >M1 (at least) Macs all don't come with coprocessors and the M1 Secure Enclave isn't any more exploitable than a regular TPM
>Absolutely no upgradability or repairability, if an engineer's oopsie sends 16V to your NAND chips, your computer is dead
>And they've done that before so they'll do it again

@idiot @allison @iska@mstdn.starnix.network @coyote @dushman Do Apple's customers really need upgradability and repairability in 2022? In 99% the laptop will die in 5 years anyway and get replaced with the new one, so why bother?
There is System 76, Purism, Pine64 and the Spanish whats-its-name laptop maker… Hell, even HP sells models like Dev One
There are literally dozens of options, but people still want to buy hardware from companies with bad reputation, expect it to be open and whine about it? I don't get it!

@m0xee @idiot @iska @coyote @dushman Sure they do. At least to the extent of like, being able to replace SSDs if they fail (which sure, I can buy the performance arguments for soldered RAM, but there's no justification for the SSD thing besides extorting customers)

@allison @iska@mstdn.starnix.network @coyote @dushman @idiot You can see a good example of such a justification on the attached image 😂
The absolute most of Apple's customers don't have a slightest clue about thermal design. They will buy storage options that overheat A LOT and it is a huge issue with the tight cases we have nowadays.
This was a non-issue ten years ago and they were user-replaceable at the time. When they started the MacBook Air line and later MBP Retina the all-glued-in approach came up.

@m0xee @iska @coyote @dushman @idiot I'm talking about on desktops (mainly the 2020 Mini comes to mind here as an example of hardware that is effectively blacklisted for me due to this which would otherwise be damn near ideal for my purposes)
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@allison @iska@mstdn.starnix.network @coyote @dushman @idiot I gave up on Apple and stopped keeping track on the new models, so I can only speculate why they did this. It might be easier for them to follow the same hardware design principle everywhere and since it's soldered-in on the laptops, it's the same on the Mini. It might also be more efficient supply chain wise to use similar parts in desktops 🤷

@m0xee @iska @coyote @dushman @idiot Probably. Either way, I'll just keep doing the Optiplex secret strat until I can no longer get away with it, then, idk, retire to a monastery or something

@allison Why Apple then, still like the OS (OS X? macOS? Whatever it is called now)?
There is a wide selection of PCs on the market in the vein of Mac Mini. System76 has it, Purism has it, a few lesser-known brands have them, ARM-based too.
Some can accommodate both SATA and M2 drives at the same time, up to 64 gigs of RAM, newest CPUs — you can't have a decent GPU in it, but otherwise a real powerhouse in a small box!

@m0xee Yeah, software reasons. Also I don't think any other ARM64 computers are capable of driving a 144hz monitor in any sort of performant way

@allison Yes, you are most probably right!
I am a man of the last decade in this regard. It did matter in the CRT days, but not anymore, not for me. I know there are nice things like HDR, HiDPI and way higher refresh rates, but I'm still perfectly fine with my two 30" Cinema Displays 😄

@m0xee I'd probably just use CRTs if they didn't give me eye problems, but since they do, I seek the lowest input latency I can afford. High refresh rates help with that.

@allison Yes, CRTs=eyestrain. Even IPS-panels are a bit hard on the eyes IMO. I turn off the second display when I don't need it.
Now I see, your demands are pretty specific. The solutions to save you from the monastery should already be on their way though. I mean even midrange phones have 120 Hz now. ARM-based desktops and laptops will follow suit soon enough as mainstream moves away from Intel.

@allison @m0xee
I mean even my phone would be capable of driving a 144hz monitor without lag. It has a 1.8 TFLOP GPU. The display is only 90hz tho.
@allison @m0xee
Unless you're talking about gaming, you don't need a very powerful GPU to drive a 144hz monitor.
@dushman @m0xee I am indeed talking about gaming. Not the heaviest use, but in general, I do need something fairly powerful to the extent that, for example, most Intel iGPUs simply don't cut it.
@allison @m0xee
I mean who gets an igpu for modern games anyway?
@dushman @m0xee I've actually done it before, it was actually pretty serviceable at the time
@allison @m0xee
Depends on what you play. I have a 6.4 TFLOP GPU on desktop but mostly play old shit anyways.
@allison @m0xee
My phone is more powerful than an Xbox one or PS4 in every way though.

@dushman @allison Phones are getting too powerful. The cheap Chinese device I've got myself this year for two hundred bucks can build mesa in a couple of minutes. This is crazy! Who needs all this computing power? And it's even got 120 Hz!
At least it can make it through 6 days on a single charge which is very good!

@dushman @allison I don't think it's on par with the game consoles though. Because even with all the quirks you can't make the heat dissipation efficient enough.
The laptops also have these nice 8 core CPUs, but still get throttled under continuous workload in half an hour or so.

@m0xee @allison
I mean not under sustained load cuz overheating, but for shorter periods of time it's absolutely better than a ps4/xbo.
@m0xee @allison
>The laptops also have these nice 8 core CPUs, but still get throttled under continuous workload in half an hour or so.

Yeah true, unless you have one of the chonkier gaming ones.
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