How can laptop be so powerful with so little power consumption?

[superarthur]

My laptop can play demanding games with no problem. (I dual-boot and play games in windows 7 :P) And it isn't even an expensive one.
But look the desktops. They take much more space and use much more power, but they don't work a lot quicker.
First, look at the CPU. Even though a laptop CPU doesn't have a huge fan for cooling, it works as good as their desktop counterpart, albeit with a slower clock rate.
The graphics card for a desktop is huge with a big fan, yet, a cheap desktop graphics card is slower than a decent laptop one. (Maybe I shouldn't compare a cheap card with a decent one, but you would expect that if they are doing less, they should be smaller and require less cooling.)

The question is; "How can laptop be so powerful with so little power consumption? (and such a small size)"

[spoons]

snippity

What's your laptop's specs, and what demanding games are you playing?

[Strategist01]

Laptop parts are specially engineered to be powerful (they won't be as powerful as desktop components or as cheap) and to use less power specifically because they are in a laptop. The portability factor is not much good if you only have 15 mins of battery time. and og course the are smaller to keep weight down and for ergonomic ease.

[superarthur]

I wanted to talk about this in general, and not to focus on specific spec on a specific computer, so I deliberately left out my specs. :P

[Half-Left]

Laptop hardware 'is not' equivalent to PC desktop computers, it's cut down and optimised to use less power done in a number of ways.

[superarthur]

Laptop parts are specially engineered to be powerful (they won't be as powerful as desktop components or as cheap) and to use less power specifically because they are in a laptop. The portability factor is not much good if you only have 15 mins of battery time. and og course the are smaller to keep weight down and for ergonomic ease.

I seldom use my laptop unplugged. Even if I bring it outside, I use would find a desk and a socket to plug my laptop in.

[superarthur]

Laptop hardware 'is not' equivalent to PC desktop computers, it's cut down and optimised to use less power done in a number of ways.

I am not saying that it's equivalent (i.e, I am not comparing a laptop i5 to a desktop i5), but in general, laptop is relatively powerful with a much smaller size and power consumption.

[Strategist01]

I seldom use my laptop unplugged. Even if I bring it outside, I use would find a desk and a socket to plug my laptop in.

Then you might as well get a desktop. You can get much more computing power for cheaper from a desktop...

[superarthur]

Then you might as well get a desktop. You can get much more computing power for cheaper from a desktop...

but I won't bring a desktop back and forth from uni to home even if I've got place to plug it....
my laptop is only around 2.2 kg...
and as i said, it is as powerful as most desktop anyway (it's acer one, so it's relatively cheap as well)

P.S. can we go back to the topic? what did the manufacturer do to make laptop CPUs and GPUs so powerful?

[Half-Left]

I am not saying that it's equivalent (i.e, I am not comparing a laptop i5 to a desktop i5), but in general, laptop is relatively powerful with a much smaller size and power consumption.

Yes because they're less powerful than a desktop, so there for consume less power, less heat, smaller size gets you a laptop. :p

[TheNessus]

but I won't bring a desktop back and forth from uni to home even if I've got place to plug it....
my laptop is only around 2.2 kg...
and as i said, it is as powerful as most desktop anyway (it's acer one, so it's relatively cheap as well)

P.S. can we go back to the topic? what did the manufacturer do to make laptop CPUs and GPUs so powerful?

It's pretty simple.
Equivalent parts cost more on the laptop. Reason being they are specially designed thinner, smaller, and to fit into a laptop.
That is, graphics card X for desktop costs Y, graphics card X modified for a laptop costs Y+1. Naturally, a better graphics card for Desktop, let it be Z, costs the same as X-for-laptop, which is weaker than Z.

I don't think parts use LESS power, but they use the same amount of power more EFFICIENTLY. Since a desktop has no reason to use power efficiently (unless you're a tree-hugger), it uses a lot of it, and effort is not being made to being power efficient, and instead effort is diverted for other things, i.e. overclocking.

[undecim]

Well, for one, laptops have many parts integrated into the motherboard. (video card, for example) This means there are less electronics to power, but it also means that they are less customizable and not modular (i.e. if one part breaks, the whole motherboard is useless)

Laptop parts also tend to be made so that they can operate at a higher temperature, which cuts down on power consumption from fans.

Smaller hard disks means less power is used to spin the disks.

The operating system often turns off hardware on laptops when it's not needed in order to conserve battery power.

And the integrated screen means less power is lost converting AC to DC, since it all goes through one converter,

Though laptops do sacrifice some speed for this. For example, if your hard drive has been spun down, and you need to access a file, you have to wait for that hard drive to spin up again.

[undecim]

I don't think parts use LESS power, but they use the same amount of power more EFFICIENTLY. Since a desktop has no reason to use power efficiently (unless you're a tree-hugger)

Or someone who cares about how much their power bill is.

[Sylslay]

Some history :-)
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Intel+Introduces+First+Pentium+II+Processors+for+M obile+PCs%3B+New...-a020457797

IMHO It all about core of processor, and big change where made by enginers from Israel in PENTIUM III MOBILE - CODE COPERMINE.

http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Pentium-III/


Intel Mobile Pentium III-M microprocessors were based on the last Pentium III core - Tualatin. These mobile processors featured a few performance enhancements such as larger size of L2 cache, data Prefetch Logic (DPL) feature and increased Front-Side Bus frequency. The mobile microprocessors had lower core voltage and power consumption than Mobile Pentium III CPUs based on Coppermine core. The mobile CPUs also had additional Deeper Sleep power-saving mode.

IT LOOKS LIKE STARTED SOME TIME AGO, and now CPU are used in mobile phones etc....

No offence for AMD k7 power-now, just history where made. I like both AMD and Intel, Did't use Cyrix and ARM.

KISS - is design to use as low power as possble.
Desktop CPU looks diffrent than Mobile CPU and works on some backgrounnd but diffrent way.

[Old_Grey_Wolf]

It depends on what is in the desktop.

I have looked inside many new desktops. They have a motherboard with integrated graphics, integrated Ethernet, etc.; an overrated power supply; a 500 GB hard drive; and a CD/DVD RW drive. They are mostly empty space. After you add a small monitor to it, that is equivalent to a Laptop monitor, then the power that is used is not that much more than a Laptop. The reasons that it uses a little more power is the overrated power supply, larger fans, higher speed hard drive (hopefully), and CD/DVD RW drive built for a longer life expectancy (hopefully).

Once you add things to the desktop to make them what they should be used for; like, a high-end processor (such as quad core), lots of RAM, graphics card, large fast storage, big monitor, big speakers, etc., they consume a lot more power. If you don't need all that, and can live with the 3 year 15 to 25% failure rate of a laptop, them use a laptop.

[Austin25]

My laptop can play demanding games with no problem. (I dual-boot and play games in windows 7 :P) And it isn't even an expensive one.
But look the desktops. They take much more space and use much more power, but they don't work a lot quicker.
First, look at the CPU. Even though a laptop CPU doesn't have a huge fan for cooling, it works as good as their desktop counterpart, albeit with a slower clock rate.
The graphics card for a desktop is huge with a big fan, yet, a cheap desktop graphics card is slower than a decent laptop one. (Maybe I shouldn't compare a cheap card with a decent one, but you would expect that if they are doing less, they should be smaller and require less cooling.)

The question is; "How can laptop be so powerful with so little power consumption? (and such a small size)"
It's magic. :lolflag: