alt Hacker NewsI have a 6 year old high end laptop that I keep as a backup and I disagree about no progress being made on screens. The current screens are very good, especially in high brightness environments.
> The only thing that significantly changes is the motherboard, which is not nothing, but replacing it independently makes sense to me.
Laptop motherboards aren’t like desktop motherboards where you can define a big outline and fit standard parts within it. The laptop design leverages tight co-design with the enclosure for thermal performance. If you’re lucky and leave enough extra space then you can design next generation parts to line up neatly with the thermal solution of last gen, then cap it at the limit of whatever last gen was designed for. However the optimal solution will always be to co-design the chassis, thermal solution, and motherboard together.
> If you’re lucky and leave enough extra space then you can design next generation parts to line up neatly with the thermal solution of last gen, then cap it at the limit of whatever last gen was designed for.
The mobile Ryzen 3/5/7/9 processors from the current year have a configurable TDP up to the same max (54W) as the earliest Ryzen "H" processors from 2017. The first generation mobile Core i7 from 2009 had a TDP up to 55W. The mobile Pentium 4 from 2003 had a TDP up to 76W (which appears to be the high water mark). In any given generation there were also lower end models using less power across a power range that seems to be fairly consistent over time.
Why does the thermal solution need to be redesigned if the heat output hasn't materially changed in decades?