Set up the Mrs.' workstation yesterday. We have both machines
(Mac Studio, and this one) set up on her desk in her office.
Installed Mint 22.1 and gave her cairo-dock with the "3d"
effect so she wouldn't feel out-of-place. HOTAS supported
without incident.

14 cores w/ht for 28 threads, 32G of RAM.

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-14700F

Been reading about this processor. It has 8 "performance"
cores and 12 "efficiency" cores. Interesting.

The GPU reports it is a:
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER (AD104-A)

Form factor: ITX.

It was making a buzzing sound while running, so I opened
the case -- and found it full of styrofoam packing materials,
mostly to hold the GPU steady while shipping. So once that was
removed, it is silent. Surprised it ran at all with all the airflow
blocked. 🤷‍♂️️

Note that the wifi drivers did _not_ work with stock Mint 21.3, you have
to use 22.1 to get the newer kernel that supports the chip.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0D2M48B5Q

# uname -a
Linux buzz 6.8.0-51-generic #52-Ubuntu SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Thu Dec 5
13:09:44 UTC 2024 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

I have yet to build Linux on it yet, was going to try to keep it
close to "stock" ... but the 6.13 kernel has improvements to the
wifi drivers, so I'll have to think about that.

NVIDIA driver version 550.142.

--
-v System76 Thelio Mega v1.1 x86_64 NVIDIA RTX 3090 Ti
OS: Linux 6.13.0 Release: Mint 21.3 Mem: 258G
"Wisdom is knowing what to do with what you know."

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On 22 Jan 2025 19:18:15 GMT, vallor <vallor@cultnix.org> wrote in <lvcujnFed7nU2@mid.individual.net>:

Set up the Mrs.' workstation yesterday. We have both machines (Mac
Studio, and this one) set up on her desk in her office.
Installed Mint 22.1 and gave her cairo-dock with the "3d"
effect so she wouldn't feel out-of-place. HOTAS supported without
incident.

14 cores w/ht for 28 threads, 32G of RAM.

Actually, it has 20 cores -- 8 "performance" and 12 "efficiency",
as below.

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-14700F

Been reading about this processor. It has 8 "performance"
cores and 12 "efficiency" cores. Interesting.

The GPU reports it is a:
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER (AD104-A)

Form factor: ITX.

It was making a buzzing sound while running, so I opened the case -- and found it full of styrofoam packing materials,
mostly to hold the GPU steady while shipping. So once that was removed,
it is silent. Surprised it ran at all with all the airflow blocked. 🤷‍♂️️

Note that the wifi drivers did _not_ work with stock Mint 21.3, you have
to use 22.1 to get the newer kernel that supports the chip.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0D2M48B5Q

# uname -a Linux buzz 6.8.0-51-generic #52-Ubuntu SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC
Thu Dec 5 13:09:44 UTC 2024 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

I have yet to build Linux on it yet, was going to try to keep it close
to "stock" ... but the 6.13 kernel has improvements to the wifi drivers,
so I'll have to think about that.

NVIDIA driver version 550.142.

--
-v System76 Thelio Mega v1.1 x86_64 NVIDIA RTX 3090 Ti
OS: Linux 6.13.0 Release: Mint 21.3 Mem: 258G
"Take two crows and caw me in the morning"

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On 1/22/25 2:56 PM, vallor wrote:

On 22 Jan 2025 19:18:15 GMT, vallor <vallor@cultnix.org> wrote in <lvcujnFed7nU2@mid.individual.net>:

Set up the Mrs.' workstation yesterday. We have both machines (Mac
Studio, and this one) set up on her desk in her office.
Installed Mint 22.1 and gave her cairo-dock with the "3d"
effect so she wouldn't feel out-of-place. HOTAS supported without
incident.

14 cores w/ht for 28 threads, 32G of RAM.

Actually, it has 20 cores -- 8 "performance" and 12 "efficiency",
as below.

Thanks for that clarification. That one jumped out, and got me
wondering if cores & threads had gotten conflated, or something.


-hh

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-14700F

Been reading about this processor. It has 8 "performance"
cores and 12 "efficiency" cores. Interesting.

The GPU reports it is a:
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER (AD104-A)

Form factor: ITX.

It was making a buzzing sound while running, so I opened the case -- and
found it full of styrofoam packing materials,
mostly to hold the GPU steady while shipping. So once that was removed,
it is silent. Surprised it ran at all with all the airflow blocked.
🤷‍♂️️

Note that the wifi drivers did _not_ work with stock Mint 21.3, you have
to use 22.1 to get the newer kernel that supports the chip.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0D2M48B5Q

# uname -a Linux buzz 6.8.0-51-generic #52-Ubuntu SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC
Thu Dec 5 13:09:44 UTC 2024 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

I have yet to build Linux on it yet, was going to try to keep it close
to "stock" ... but the 6.13 kernel has improvements to the wifi drivers,
so I'll have to think about that.

NVIDIA driver version 550.142.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

vallor wrote:

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-14700F

Been reading about this processor. It has 8 "performance"
cores and 12 "efficiency" cores. Interesting.

Nice. What does the CPU cooler look like? The i7-14700 is a
power-hungry, hot-running chip. A lot of people (like myself) are
going with dual-tower, dual-fan coolers for the faster CPU's, these
days.

Today the last piece of my new PC finally arrived, so I'll soon be
putting it together. A detailed write-up on the hardware will be
posted. Spoiler alert: CPU is a i5-14600K, 6 P cores and 8 E cores.

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On Wed, 22 Jan 2025 17:42:24 -0600, chrisv <chrisv@nospam.invalid> wrote
in <1503pjp1svr3iv577gb2n7oae3cbnj6kob@4ax.com>:

vallor wrote:

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-14700F

Been reading about this processor. It has 8 "performance"
cores and 12 "efficiency" cores. Interesting.

Nice. What does the CPU cooler look like? The i7-14700 is a
power-hungry, hot-running chip. A lot of people (like myself) are going
with dual-tower, dual-fan coolers for the faster CPU's, these days.

Today the last piece of my new PC finally arrived, so I'll soon be
putting it together. A detailed write-up on the hardware will be
posted. Spoiler alert: CPU is a i5-14600K, 6 P cores and 8 E cores.

Two big fans blowing through what appeared to be a radiator, so
I think it's water-cooled. I didn't pull it apart enough to see
the CPU itself, it's pretty crowded in there.

Building Linux on it right now, I want better wifi drivers.

04:00.0 Network controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8852CE PCIe 802.11ax Wireless Network Controller (rev 01)

The new drivers in 6.13 (and maybe earlier) have debug info,
so I can see why the interface has occasional complaints.

--
-v System76 Thelio Mega v1.1 x86_64 NVIDIA RTX 3090 Ti
OS: Linux 6.13.0 Release: Mint 21.3 Mem: 258G
"This tagline will reformat your hard drive in 1.5 seconds!"

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

vallor wrote:

chrisv wrote:

vallor wrote:

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-14700F

Been reading about this processor. It has 8 "performance"
cores and 12 "efficiency" cores. Interesting.

Nice. What does the CPU cooler look like? The i7-14700 is a
power-hungry, hot-running chip. A lot of people (like myself) are going
with dual-tower, dual-fan coolers for the faster CPU's, these days.

Today the last piece of my new PC finally arrived, so I'll soon be
putting it together. A detailed write-up on the hardware will be
posted. Spoiler alert: CPU is a i5-14600K, 6 P cores and 8 E cores.

Two big fans blowing through what appeared to be a radiator, so
I think it's water-cooled. I didn't pull it apart enough to see
the CPU itself, it's pretty crowded in there.

Yeah the water coolers are also now getting common. Personally I feel
the power consumption is getting out of hand, if water cooling is
needed. But then I'm not in need of a high-end CPU really using all
of its cores, either.

Building Linux on it right now, I want better wifi drivers.

04:00.0 Network controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8852CE PCIe >802.11ax Wireless Network Controller (rev 01)

The new drivers in 6.13 (and maybe earlier) have debug info,
so I can see why the interface has occasional complaints.

We all run off Ethernet, here, with 1 Gb/s service to the house. We
had to run CAT6 cables because the CAT5 that I ran when the house was
built could no longer cut it.

--
"The problem here is that the freetards continue to ignore the real
world in order to protect their misguided belief system." - trolling
fsckwit "Ezekiel"

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On Thu, 23 Jan 2025 07:17:52 -0600, chrisv wrote:

Yeah the water coolers are also now getting common. Personally I feel
the power consumption is getting out of hand, if water cooling is
needed. But then I'm not in need of a high-end CPU really using all of
its cores, either.

Years ago we used water cooling on an prototype machine. It was a 50 KW Colpitts oscillator powered by a very large Eimac tube, not a computer.
There must be some corollary to Moore's law where power consumption is inversely proportional to device complexity and doubles every two years.

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rbowman wrote:

Years ago we used water cooling on an prototype machine. It was a 50 KW >Colpitts oscillator powered by a very large Eimac tube, not a computer.
There must be some corollary to Moore's law where power consumption is >inversely proportional to device complexity and doubles every two years.

It doesn't seem all that long ago that CPU's didn't even require
heatsinks. I recall 33MHz 486 PC's being that way. When the 66MHz
486 DX2 came out small heatsinks (without fan) began to be used.
Pentiums started using heatsinks with integrated fans.

Then of course came the "cartidge style" Pentium II's and III's (and
Celerons) that Intel shipped with heatsinks with fans. My first use
of an aftermarket tower cooler was with my 1 GHz Pentium III.

--
"Technically creative people stay far away from Linux." - some dumb
fsck

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On 1/23/25 1:13 PM, rbowman wrote:

On Thu, 23 Jan 2025 07:17:52 -0600, chrisv wrote:

Yeah the water coolers are also now getting common. Personally I feel
the power consumption is getting out of hand, if water cooling is
needed. But then I'm not in need of a high-end CPU really using all of
its cores, either.

Years ago we used water cooling on an prototype machine. It was a 50 KW Colpitts oscillator powered by a very large Eimac tube, not a computer.
There must be some corollary to Moore's law where power consumption is inversely proportional to device complexity and doubles every two years.

More complicated thermal management systems become more common as one
moves up in total power and system density. Plus requirements play a
part too: a simple rule of thumb is that a distilled water system has
~twice the heat transfer capacity as the same design after replacing the
water with antifreeze.

For forgoing liquid cooling, I can recall attending a DARPA conference
on a "DARPA Hard" technology initiative they had for thermal management
stuff, as I was working on a heat spreader that used Thermal Pyrolitic
Graphite (TPG) to get rid of a liquid cooling loop under the chip; if
memory serves, it was capable of roughly 200W/cm^2 extraction, which was
good for getting the source heat concentration out of the guts and back
to where we had a more generous space claim to move it off platform.

And from a Moore's Law perspective, we were investing in chip efficiency
to get the original heat source load down ... was successful in doubling
the efficiency and was closing in on triple when the customer lost
interest due to non-tech factors. It will come back around, eventually.


-hh

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On Thu, 23 Jan 2025 14:37:12 -0600, chrisv wrote:

rbowman wrote:

Years ago we used water cooling on an prototype machine. It was a 50 KW >>Colpitts oscillator powered by a very large Eimac tube, not a computer. >>There must be some corollary to Moore's law where power consumption is >>inversely proportional to device complexity and doubles every two years.

It doesn't seem all that long ago that CPU's didn't even require
heatsinks. I recall 33MHz 486 PC's being that way. When the 66MHz 486
DX2 came out small heatsinks (without fan) began to be used. Pentiums
started using heatsinks with integrated fans.

A company I did some work for had a collection of no-name 'turbo' PCs. I
don't remember if they had a heat sink but the cases were the AT form
factor and you needed to leave the cover off to let them breathe.

Today even the Pi 5 in the Canakit box has a heat sink and a cute little
fan.

https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/22/datacenter_emissions_not_accurate/

We have successfully replaced smokestack industries -- with smokestack industries where the smoke is hidden.

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