Merom chip - a bust? Hardly better than Yonah?

[milo]

Where did it say it would perform worse?

Merom is supposed to perform 20% faster at the same clock speed, this article doesn't dispute that. And 64 bit is nice, even if it's just for future peace of mind.

Intel never promised lower power use, just better CPU processing at the same power use.

Not to mention that TDP is maximum power use, not an average. It doesn't tell you anything about heat or battery life, especially since merom is supposed to have improved power saving modes.

I'd wait for it, although I think people who are talking about selling current macbooks or MPBs are nuts. It's only a disappointment to the people who way overhyped it - for those of us who read what was actually promised, it's a nice modest improvement over yonah, not disappointing at all.

64-bit laptops are overkill. have fun with cruddy battery life. laptops don't even use 32 bit- so why do we need to upgrade something, when we don't even use all of what we're replacing?

Based on REAL WORLD tests posted so far, battery life doesn't look cruddy at all. And 32/64 has nothing to do with laptops. The holdup right now is OSX. Once leopard ships, any mac can benefit from 64 bit, even laptops.

 

[AppleIntelRock]

"Bitness" isn't just about how much memory you can address. It also defines the width of the general purpose CPU registers and the size of integer data that can be manipulated with a single instruction. Sounds like you need to do some research. On top of that, recent benchmark tests show that Merom doesn't use any more power than Jonah, at the same clock frequency:

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2808&p=1

And, on top of all that, by next year ALL Intel processors will be 64-bit. I guess you better hold on to your current laptop - forever.

64 bit processor architecture is clearly faster when working with things such as DV which have very large amounts of data, however if your trying to tell me that for other tasks such has graphic design, etc. a huge speed increase will occur, even with 10.5, I’m not buying it. Speed is not the main benefit of 64 bit processing at this time. Unless of course you’ll be doing major scientific research.

 

[nate13]

Better for OCing

sorry i didnt read the whole thread but... the new core 2 duos (merom) seem to be very good oc-ers- so much that an overclocked 1.8 can compete with the extreme edition (x6800) with just air cooling. they are just limited in supply right now, so id think about getting one either to pop into a iMac Core Duo or building a PC till price drops

 

[brianus]

Definitely - the jump in Front Bus Speed that the Conroe chip provides makes Apple adding a merom chip to the iMac senseless in my opinion...

Of course, if they do add merom to the iMac, that headless mid-range Mac everyone's been waiting for will come...

I agree on the obvious benefit(s) of Conroe; however, the only reason I could see them putting a Merom into the iMac is so they don't have to redesign the rest of the components, a cost-saving measure. Even if they do that, it would likely be temporary.. it doesn't make much sense to keep a laptop processor in a desktop case originally designed for a G5 forever.

You know, the iMac is due for a redesign soon

Says who? It was last redesigned in October of 2005. The basic form factor is less than two years old. The original iMac lasted what, 4, 5 years? The current design is popular and attractive and fits with the rest of their line; I can't see any cause to change it any time soon.

I wonder if they'll make it an all-in-one again, or produce a model that has a 'snap-on' screen of some sort....

If it's not all in one it's not an iMac; it's that simple. How would a snap on screen work and what would be the point?

 

[manosaurus]

For those of you that say you laugh at those who are waiting for Merom MBP's I say that, if it really makes you feel better than laugh away. When Apple upgrades the MBP's they will probably add other features as well such the magnetic latch that the MB's have or even one of those silly fingerprint readers. Who knows what. Something though. The Merom chipset requires that the LB be redesigned anyway so why would Apple not resign elsewhere?

 

[AvSRoCkCO1067]

For those of you that say you laugh at those who are waiting for Merom MBP's I say that, if it really makes you feel better than laugh away. When Apple upgrades the MBP's they will probably add other features as well such the magnetic latch that the MB's have or even one of those silly fingerprint readers. Who knows what. Something though. The Merom chipset requires that the LB be redesigned anyway so why would Apple not resign elsewhere?

I'm really, really doubtful that they'll add a fingerprint reader - but you're absolutely right. With such a large processor change, I'd doubt that Apple would just update the processor - we'll see....

 

[fblack]

Faster gigahertz is not the only way to measure performance.

"Not listed in the table above are the improvements to the cache subsystem and memory accesses on Core 2 Duo. Merom features more aggressive prefetchers than Yonah, as well as Intel's Memory Disambiguation technology that allows for out of order loads. In other words, not only is Merom able to operate on more data at once, at a faster speed, but it can also get access to that data quicker."

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2808&p=4

All in all its an upgrade and I'll be happy if they can keep it from setting my lap on fire.

I'm in the market and will take one. Its better than apple's upgrade from 1.67 G4 to 1.67 G4.

 

[coday182]

If this is true I will laugh for weeks. Mainly because I was feeling a bit sad that I got my MBP in April and now merom is coming out but this makes me feel better. Although I feel sorry for those waiting for this new chip. Hopefully the speed will make up for the heat, but since the yonah chips are so hot already unless merom does woodcrest speeds I don't think it'll be worth the heat.

And we'll be waiting when the first I-got-to-have-it software comes out that requires a 64 bit years down the road. You'll have to get urself a new notebook.