this post was submitted on 21 Feb 2026
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I have a NPU for no fucking reason
That space on the CPU die could have been extra cache or maybe even another core, speed up all computing tasks on the machine. But no, it's a fucking waste of space; not flexible enough to be used for general-purpose compute, not parallel enough to be used for a GPU, not enough RAM to run a local model. Got mine switched off in the BIOS just in case it improves battery life any.
Eh, I don't think NPUs are ready to be marketed so heavily, but they've been around for a while and do get used.
They're basically a rebranded tensor processing unit, think a more specialised GPU that's even more energy efficient at tensor/linear algebra.
It's mostly used in more technical applications, such as image/audio/video processing, machine learning, or really anything maths heavy. Apple's M series had NPUs, and are an understated reason why they perform extraordinarily well in a lot of scientific applications.
Uses for consumers are not as compelling (especially on laptop/desktop), mostly faster/more efficient subtitle generation, face recognition, and maybe blurring your zoom background.