MacBook until Merom?

[Demon Hunter]

Hi all,

I've read a lot about Merom, and for my purposes the vote is: wait. This is going to be used for years. I want to buy a 17" MBP immediately after its release (July-September).

I'm not interested in Rev. A, because of the heat/whine issues and "outdated" graphics (relative). I'm sure Rev. B will run hot too, however...

I use my dad's iBook and the PowerMac G5s on campus, but it would be so nice to have a MacBook until then. I would either sell it to my dad or eBay.

I think the resale will be high, because it's an Intel with nearly a year of warranty remaining. A PowerPC, on the other hand, is deadweight.

Will I lose much? Your thoughts?

 

[wako]

more than half is my guess...


the moment you crack open the box the computer quickly starts to depreciate in value

 

[ChrisRC]

more than half is my guess...


the moment you crack open the box the computer quickly starts to depreciate in value

There won't be any $500 white Macbooks or $750 Blackbooks in 3 months. Give me a break.

 

[kevin.rivers]

Hi all,

I've read a lot about Merom, and for my purposes the vote is: wait. This is going to be used for years. I want to buy a 17" MBP immediately after its release (July-September).

I'm not interested in Rev. A, because of the heat/whine issues and "outdated" graphics (relative). I'm sure Rev. B will run hot too, however...

I use my dad's iBook and the PowerMac G5s on campus, but it would be so nice to have a MacBook until then. I would either sell it to my dad or eBay.

I think the resale will be high, because it's an Intel with nearly a year of warranty remaining. A PowerPC, on the other hand, is deadweight.

Will I lose much? Your thoughts?

Current intel computers will be used for years, and are more than capable. Most software isn't even SMP capable. In other words, the power of dual core hasn't even been completely utilized. So while your decision may be to wait, please keep it to yourself all you are doing is promoting to already too many threads about this topic that seem to come up everyday.

 

[Demon Hunter]

Current intel computers will be used for years, and are more than capable. Most software isn't even SMP capable. In other words, the power of dual core hasn't even been completely utilized. So while your decision may be to wait, please keep it to yourself all you are doing is promoting to already too many threads about this topic that seem to come up everyday.

Not really, no one is addressing my issue, specifically the resale value of a new MacBook in 2-4 months.

Well, anyhow, I bought one. These MacBooks are amazing.

 

[SuperSnake2012]

I'll be picking mine up in August/September. Student union + Merom Macbooks?

 

[wako]

There won't be any $500 white Macbooks or $750 Blackbooks in 3 months. Give me a break.

oops, i thought he was talking about his iBook


BTW, i really dont think the Merom is going to be really that worth it as people think it will be. The CPU isnt any more energy efficient, bus speed is only slightly higher, and clock speeds arent that impressive either. If anything you should buy the current one, wait till after the merom and get the following CPU, because that actually has an impressive bus speed, a bit more energy efficient once the next chipset rolls out as well in 2007.

 

[ImNoSuperMan]

BTW, i really dont think the Merom is going to be really that worth it as people think it will be. The CPU isnt any more energy efficient, bus speed is only slightly higher, and clock speeds arent that impressive either. If anything you should buy the current one, wait till after the merom and get the following CPU, because that actually has an impressive bus speed, a bit more energy efficient once the next chipset rolls out as well in 2007.

EGG-JAGD-DLY.

Current yonahs and the upcoming Meroms wont really be that much different in real world computing performance. If you really want a CPU faster than the current Yonahs then wait till Q3 2007 when we`ll see Meroms with faster Bus Speed.

 

[Acehigh]

I'll be picking mine up in August/September. Student union + Merom Macbooks?

Too hot now, I doubt a student union promo this year. Maybe for a shuffle but doubt it. Last year they did it because of the phase out of the mini ipod and weak sales. Unless they plan to phase out one of the macbooks, but seems they cant make them fast enough.

 

[tristan]

Current yonahs and the upcoming Meroms wont really be that much different in real world computing performance. If you really want a CPU faster than the current Yonahs then wait till Q3 2007 when we`ll see Meroms with faster Bus Speed.

Respectfully disagree. The merom will SMOKE the yonah. Will smoke it like a hand rolled doobie. 20% faster at the same clock, my friend, but it won't be the same clock. And 64-bit, finally, just ready and waiting for OS X 64 or whatever it will be called.

I can say with no exaggeration at all, that if Al Gore had a Merom-powered Mac in 2000, he'd be president today.

Seriously, the Merom is the Intel notebook platform for the next couple years, not the Yonah.

 

[ImNoSuperMan]

Respectfully disagree. The merom will SMOKE the yonah. Will smoke it like a hand rolled doobie. 20% faster at the same clock, my friend, but it won't be the same clock. And 64-bit, finally, just ready and waiting for OS X 64 or whatever it will be called.

I can say with no exaggeration at all, that if Al Gore had a Merom-powered Mac in 2000, he'd be president today.

Seriously, the Merom is the Intel notebook platform for the next couple years, not the Yonah.

Well I know Merom will smoke the Yonahs. But not just now. The meroms we`ll be getting this August will not be that much faster than the current Yonah. But thats just my assumption. We`ll have to wait till August for the real comparison.

 

[Abstract]

The Meroms will be faster than the current Yonahs when they're released. That's for certain. However, it's not the most important point.

Getting a MacBook now and keeping it long-term means you're going to be in the 32-bit world for awhile. Merom is 64-bit, which is where things have been headed.

While personally, I couldn't care less (I'm using a 1 GHz G4 right now, so everything is 2x or 3x faster), I'm sure people want something that'll still be relevent to new 64-bit software that's released in 1 year. This may include OSX Leopard, or maybe the OS after Leopard.

 

[emotion]

I depends on the apps you want to use as to whether 64 bit will be needed or not. If you need to use scientific apps (or address 4gb+ of memory) then 64 bit procesors will be useful if not then 32bit will be ok.

I'm not sure why people think merom will be that much faster. The speedbump might be to 2.33Ghz in the first pass and the bus speeds the same as for yonah/core1. Are we talking more available registers or cache that will mean more performance? If not then in real world terms the performance increase is likely to be small.

 

[celebrian23]

It's impossible to know real-world performance right now. I don't think anyone who buys an intel computer right now is going to be disappointed in the least with yonah.

 

[Core Trio]

I depends on the apps you want to use as to whether 64 bit will be needed or not. If you need to use scientific apps (or address 4gb+ of memory) then 64 bit procesors will be useful if not then 32bit will be ok.

I'm not sure why people think merom will be that much faster. The speedbump might be to 2.33Ghz in the first pass and the bus speeds the same as for yonah/core1. Are we talking more available registers or cache that will mean more performance? If not then in real world terms the performance increase is likely to be small.

Actually merom has twice the L2 cache that yonah does. not to mention its more 20% faster at the same clock, and i have a feeling by the time its officially announced intel will have higher clock speeds than projected now, or atleast a short while after.

 

[shadowmoses]

Getting a MacBook now and keeping it long-term means you're going to be in the 32-bit world for awhile. Merom is 64-bit, which is where things have been headed.

Whilst that is true the importance of 64-bit computing is not really that great, I'm no pro on the issue but well informed people will tell you that in order to get the full use out of a 64-bit processor you need a lot of RAM (not 1gb or 2gb more like 4-8gb's)

If you are planning on buying a MBP then I'd wait out for Memron, whereas I think its safe to buy a MacBook without fear of an imminent processor upgrade to memron as they'll stay as core duo (Yonah's) for a while.....

SHadoW

 

[emotion]

Actually merom has twice the L2 cache that yonah does. not to mention its more 20% faster at the same clock, and i have a feeling by the time its officially announced intel will have higher clock speeds than projected now, or atleast a short while after.

The cache will make some difference yes.

I suspect figures like that "20% at the same clock speed" rely on greater bus speeds that we'll only see next year with the new (santa rosa? i forget the name) chipsets that support the processor (800Mhz vs. 533Hz). A cache size difference is unlikely to make that much of a difference.

 

[macpastor]

Current intel computers will be used for years, and are more than capable. Most software isn't even SMP capable. In other words, the power of dual core hasn't even been completely utilized. So while your decision may be to wait, please keep it to yourself all you are doing is promoting to already too many threads about this topic that seem to come up everyday.

if the guy wants to start a thread let him. YOU don't have to read it, and YOU don't have to post. Seems like you got the problem more than he does.