Official Merom Discussion Thread

[AirFoil]

Try looking at benchmarks, in fact as a better looking glass through the FSB smoke and mirrors, simply look for benchmarks within a processor line itself (ie: Conroe), the lower models have 2MB cache and 800Mhz FSB, the upper models have 4MB cache and 1066Mhz FSB. Do you see that huge a difference between their performance?

I wouldn't necessarily say that's a "better looking glass". Comparing performance within a non Santa Rosa chipset doesn't really tell me much about Santa Rosa. The fact is at this point we don't know what sorts of trickery Intel is applying in order to squeeze more performance out of the chipset.

Robson caching shouldn't be tossed aside either. After doing some poking around I like what I'm seeing there. Significantly improved boot times, application startup times, and a potentially nice reduction in power consumption certainly contribute to the user experience.

Now I'm not expecting a 50% gain in performance, but even if it's only a 20% gain in raw performance coupled with Santa Rosa's other features...that's appealing to me. That's without factoring in what features Apple will add to the machine. If release schedules stay on track (HA!) then the timing of Santa Rosa's and Leopard's releases will probably be too tempting for me to resist. Of course it's entirely possible that the next MBP rev may be too tempting for me to resist...Heh.

 

[topgunn]

Have you been able to check the temperature and find out if it runs cooler?

It runs at nearly the exact same temperature as it did with the Yonah. I am hoping for a bit of a drop once they release a firmware update.