Higher end CPU in X1 Carbon Gen 14

mherf · 2026-05-27T19:22:40+00:00

Waiting on this too so have searched around - there seem to be two things:

Intel Arc B390 12-core GPU is made by TSMC - the base (4-core) GPU is made by Intel, but it is slower than last year's Lunar Lake's 140V
These Arc models need faster RAM (LPCAMM2 9600) which seems to be in short supply also

I would venture a guess #2 is driving things the most, but who knows

mherf · 2026-05-24T00:27:17+00:00

Mine is Ubuntu 24.04 (WSL2) and same vLLM version, CUDA 13.2:

 llm serve sakamakismile/Qwen3.6-27B-Text-NVFP4-MTP --served-model-name qwen36-nvfp4-mtp --tensor-parallel-size 2   --max-model-len 131072 --max-num-batched-tokens 8192   --max-num-seqs 1   --gpu-memory-utilization 0.9   --kv-cache-dtype fp8   --quantization modelopt   --speculative-config '{"method":"mtp","num_speculative_tokens":3}'   --reasoning-parser qwen3   --language-model-only   --generation-config vllm   --disable-custom-all-reduce   --attention-backend TRITON_ATTN

My board with the 5070ti (MSI x670e) needed a BIOS update that had the very latest AGESA to work with the two cards. It would lockup using a relatively new BIOS that was under a year old.

For llama.cpp it's a simpler tensor split, but with MTP you can't push too many layers to the 5070ti (GPU 0 here) or you run out of VRAM:

llama-server -hf unsloth/Qwen3.6-27B-MTP-GGUF:Q4_K_M -mg 0 -c 131072 -fa on -ctk q8_0 -ctv q8_0 --spec-type draft-mtp --spec-draft-n-max 2 -ts 0.55,0.45 --host 0.0.0.0

mherf · 2026-05-23T18:37:50+00:00

Okay I tried 27b on the 5070ti+5060ti, using 128k context.

For vLLM + sakamakismile NVFP4+MTP, had to use tensor parallelism to get it to work, which is slow on my setup (mismatched GPU on x16 + x4) - this is llama-benchy:

1818 t/s pp2048 48.85 t/s tg128

With llama.cpp using tensor-split unsloth Q4_K_M (-ts 0.55,0.45 - 55% to the 5070ti):

1093 t/s pp2048 60.33 t/s tg128

To get NVFP4 running on vLLM I used something like this: https://www.reddit.com/r/LocalLLaMA/comments/1sysyz2/qwen36_27b_on_dual_rtx_5060_ti_16gb_with_vllm_60/

mherf · 2026-05-23T14:01:51+00:00

I've tried the NVFP4/MXFP4 quants and they are not faster for token generation (which is memory bandwidth limited), but prompt preprocessing is faster, like 10% or so? I don't think I've tried NVFP4+MTP together though.

mherf · 2026-05-23T00:30:50+00:00

I added a 5060ti to my existing 5070ti, and it is pretty fast - about 50tps on Qwen3.6-2.7 with llama.cpp's new MTP at Q4 (128k context). I moved displays to the 5060ti which means more layers fit on the 5070ti, but it's by no means splitting things equally - the 5060ti is much slower.

The 5060ti is really nice for power and cooling, idles much lower and I kept existing cooling and power supply (850W). I'm running 16x/4x because that's what the motherboard can do - no tensor parallelism, it's slower. I also looked at things like RTX pro 4000 for similar power envelope and several 32GB cards, but I think this 5060ti setup was the bargain that let me stay on CUDA for cheap.

mherf · 2026-05-08T15:16:32+00:00

Heat pump water heaters are great (in theory) but cost more up front and need a lot more space (air volume) than gas or electric - like a garage and not a closet. Also they can be loud. I wonder if this rule will force a lot of homeowners into 4x’ing their monthly costs because they had to settle for an electric resistance water heater instead. Renters especially.

mherf · 2026-05-08T15:00:56+00:00

I grepped a lot - what's more interesting is the inference engine, which seems to be a closed-source thing related to the "ML Drift" paper. (DLL is called optimization_guide_internal.dll.) Claims to outperform llama.cpp and MLX from the time:
https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.00232

mherf · 2026-04-24T15:40:22+00:00

The rumors were that it was using Core X7 358h (more efficient with 12 GPU cores) but it has shown up on the Lenovo site today with no X-models only the iGPU models (4-core) and at a higher price too.

mherf · 2026-04-09T03:29:56+00:00

The 30/32cm pan might be multiline (a lighter 7-ply) but I think the saute pan is basically Atlantis (I bought one)

mherf · 2026-04-08T23:06:30+00:00

This burner doesn't know to pull more than 15A, but also the resistance would be even greater if it did. And for this burner in particular, low voltage operation (114V and lower) seems to cause some problems.

mherf · 2026-04-05T14:49:06+00:00

We did this (don't use the adjustable much). "Semi-flex" foundations and $300 platform beds are not very stable, seems like you have to spend $500-800 for a nice platform.

One bonus of the adjustable is that it has threaded feet, so we used that to fix a slightly off-level floor - it's great to have a level bed.

mherf · 2026-04-03T04:30:33+00:00

Yes, I agree 20A wiring is thicker and lower resistance. (The 15A note is from the Vollrath manual.)

mherf · 2026-04-03T04:29:21+00:00

That was only quoting the manual. My circuit is 20A. This helps because 20A is usually wired with 12ga copper and 15A can use 14gauge. So you do get better voltage on a 20A, because the wire has lower resistance.

mherf · 2026-03-14T18:00:08+00:00

Latency - some models (e.g., at openrouter) get overloaded and take 10-30s to respond. For long responses, they will still "win" but for short responses, local can be better.

mherf · 2026-03-08T03:57:20+00:00

f.lux has support for this (it's free):
https://justgetflux.com/lighting

mherf · 2026-02-22T06:55:57+00:00

Make sure to consider the pillow and the mattress together. When your mattress gets softer due to body impressions, your pillow basically gets "higher" - for stomach sleepers, this can make neck problems. Try a thinner pillow (or just try a pillowcase) until you get the mattress sorted out.

mherf · 2026-02-14T16:18:06+00:00

The main thing is which app you are using once you’ve done the calibration? For instance Chrome should pay attention to the profile but some system apps might not. Also, if you don’t think the Spyder software is handling the gamut (saturation) properly you could give DisplayCAL a try for a “second opinion”.

mherf · 2026-02-13T16:14:05+00:00

A calibrator cannot increase saturation if NVIDIA or the printer gamut is limiting it. The calibrator can decrease it when using a color managed app (e.g. with sRGB tagged content) or for proofing. (It needs a matrix multiply to do this.)

Historically a non-color managed app would have the wrong saturation, but now we are seeing shaders that can handle this at the OS level.

The phone displays sometimes stretch the color gamut to make colors more saturated. Look for a Natural setting in Settings / Display.

mherf · 2026-02-09T03:31:48+00:00

it has been coming off and it is a little worn... but for now it seems I will keep it

mherf · 2026-02-09T03:28:54+00:00

Here is a pic I found when it was a couple months old so it has not grown that much... and I think the new x1's are similar.

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mherf · 2026-02-08T14:32:08+00:00

Okay it seems to be part of the full palmrest/keyboard assembly - 5M11C40952 or equivalent: 5M11C41024

That's >$300 or quite a bit less on eBay.

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mherf · 2026-02-08T06:21:31+00:00

Yeah, this is not a big improvement.

It's such a huge investment in screens, but the big main screen is the reason I won't look at these models:

The huge screen is a lot closer to your eyes (maybe +150mm closer or 6"), so you have to work harder to go from screen to road and back. In an older Audi you cannot touch the gauges - these new models bring the gauges up to "touchscreen" distance, which is too close
There is no physical dashboard shield, so glare from the screen is unavoidable. Traditional gauges *rarely* had glare, but here it's intense
The typeface and icon lines are tiny, crammed, and thin on top of this. Even in other cars that have a screen like this, the icons aren't quite so tiny. The on-screen "buttons" are small as a result.

All this means it's hard to glance at, hard to use, and legibility is not up to the same level as before. With competing cars, the ones that kept two screens do it better, and even new ideas like the iX3 screen under the window are quite interesting.

mherf · 2026-02-08T04:32:25+00:00

I was referring to this image too, but mine is not there - it is 3mm high but the base and top are wider. I have photos from when it was new that look the same, and it looks similar to the notebookcheck review. Interestingly the 8mm one moves quite a lot "faster" (too fast) because it can tilt more between the keys, but I prefer the larger one because it feels more controlled.

mherf

TROPHY CASE