[sundvor]

Sorry, but if I buy a six core laptop, I'm not going to be in the casual notepad user category.

In many laptops, thanks to bad thermals I'd be better off with a 4 core where the thermals can keep up. That's where the 7nm stuff could really bring advantages.

I've been able to load up my desktop six core plenty using e.g Docker and a bunch of microservices. It has a fairly decent 360mm AIO water cooler so stays pinned at max perf. Had a bad cooler before, though, and it really impacted perf and stability.

[RussianCow]

The point still stands that most people buying these machines are generally not running them at 100% CPU usage for extended periods of time; their usage is much more bursty, with short periods at full power separated by longer periods of idling or low power. This gives the CPU plenty of time to cool down in between bursts.

If OEMs optimize for that use case, I suspect that a more efficient CPU will simply mean that they cut even more corners on the cooling, not that the thermals will actually be significantly better.