wait for merom PB?

[evt13]

Well, like 99% of the mac community, I'm in the market for a laptop. I started college this year and debated buying one of the recently revised powerbooks because of their upgraded display density. Right now, I'm using my 2 year old home-built PC. I built the PC as a holdover until I could get a mac, and intend on putting linux on it when I do purchase a mac. The upcoming merom powerbooks seem to be what I'm looking for, but I was wondering about how possible yonah powerbooks would compare. I'd really like an HD display, and a video card capable of playing back 1080p h.264. What's my best bet? Buy a yonah powerbook (assuming they are released during this school year) or wait until late fall of '06 for a merom powerbook?

Also, I'm expecting to get through college on this laptop, and my only processor intensive uses would be recording/music production and viewing video, with occasional editing.

 

[revisionA]

The major difference I heard, was that Yonah's dual cores reside in the same cpu but use the system bus to communicate. If thats the case, instead of say 2 ghz connection, they would have 533 or 66mhz connection.

Big difference, almost like not being true dual core.

Someone correct me if I am wrong on this. And also, it would be the first intelmac, thats why I bought this last ppc powerbook and dont regret it. In a year or so, maybe I'll look at them again.

$

 

[Kelson]

My thoughts...

Well, I had the order in at work for one of the new PB's, fully loaded 15". Then I cancelled the order. Basically, I have to live with whatever I get for 3 years and looking out at my next upgrade being December 2008, I figured PPC might not be the way to go.

So, that leaves me running on a 1Ghz TiBook, which has been absolutely problem free until an Intel based PB comes out. This also leaves me with the issue of deciding like you are between the Yonah and Merom PBs.

They are both slated to support Vanderpool (Virtualization Tech), and SSE/SSE2 and SSE3, which should provide good FP improvement over the Pentium M. Merom will have EM64T support, which Yonah will not. Supposedly, on a performance per watt basis, Merom outperforms Yonah by 2-1.

Regarding Rev A, I have a bit more faith in Apple to provide a less problematic Rev A product using the Intel chips, because of the additional support that Intel provides in delivering a Platform, not just a chip. Apple has to do a lot less R&D and a lot less custom development, which should reduce their costs, and reduce the Rev A issues.

I hope that Apple spares me the decision by skipping the Yonah PB, and goes straight to Merom, but at the same time if a Yonah PB would be that much faster than the current PB line, I wish they would release one now. Kinda a double edged sword, I suppose. However, I will probably wait to make the jump until Microsoft has released an Intel native Office for OS X.

- Kelson

 

[revisionA]

Well, I had the order in at work for one of the new PB's, fully loaded 15". Then I cancelled the order. Basically, I have to live with whatever I get for 3 years and looking out at my next upgrade being December 2008, I figured PPC might not be the way to go.

So, that leaves me running on a 1Ghz TiBook, which has been absolutely problem free until an Intel based PB comes out. This also leaves me with the issue of deciding like you are between the Yonah and Merom PBs.

They are both slated to support Vanderpool (Virtualization Tech), and SSE/SSE2 and SSE3, which should provide good FP improvement over the Pentium M. Merom will have EM64T support, which Yonah will not. Supposedly, on a performance per watt basis, Merom outperforms Yonah by 2-1.

Regarding Rev A, I have a bit more faith in Apple to provide a less problematic Rev A product using the Intel chips, because of the additional support that Intel provides in delivering a Platform, not just a chip. Apple has to do a lot less R&D and a lot less custom development, which should reduce their costs, and reduce the Rev A issues.

I hope that Apple spares me the decision by skipping the Yonah PB, and goes straight to Merom, but at the same time if a Yonah PB would be that much faster than the current PB line, I wish they would release one now. Kinda a double edged sword, I suppose. However, I will probably wait to make the jump until Microsoft has released an Intel native Office for OS X.

- Kelson

I doubt Office is even close to a concern for me, however Logic Pro and Photoshop CS2 are ... and for a lot of other people.

Even if the revision A is perfect, I will wait until its updated.

$

 

[jaduffy108]

Merom

Well, like 99% of the mac community, I'm in the market for a laptop. I started college this year and debated buying one of the recently revised powerbooks because of their upgraded display density. Right now, I'm using my 2 year old home-built PC. I built the PC as a holdover until I could get a mac, and intend on putting linux on it when I do purchase a mac. The upcoming merom powerbooks seem to be what I'm looking for, but I was wondering about how possible yonah powerbooks would compare. I'd really like an HD display, and a video card capable of playing back 1080p h.264. What's my best bet? Buy a yonah powerbook (assuming they are released during this school year) or wait until late fall of '06 for a merom powerbook?

Also, I'm expecting to get through college on this laptop, and my only processor intensive uses would be recording/music production and viewing video, with occasional editing.

If you don't absolutely NEED a machine now...wait for Merom, 64bit, etc, etc, etc. I think Fall '06 is quite unlikely...more like Jan 07. Regardless, it will be MUCH better than yonah... though yonah will be a welcome relief from the current PB performance stats. Good luck...

 

[iEdd]

Why don't we just keep waiting.
It's the same people that have waited since half-way through the year for an update, then the update wasn't great so they want to wait for intel, now they want to wait for merom. Technology will be updated and old products will get outdated, that's life.
I'm buying a yonah.

 

[MRU]

Why don't we just keep waiting.
It's the same people that have waited since half-way through the year for an update, then the update wasn't great so they want to wait for intel, now they want to wait for merom. Technology will be updated and old products will get outdated, that's life.
I'm buying a yonah.

Ok so by Early - Mid Summer 06 we get Yonah PB's but it takes 6-8 months for all the software developers to release fully optimised versions of software, so most will be running existing software via Rosetta, hence any immediated performance advantge has just been wiped out

By the time Memrom comes round, software will be fully optimised and we can finally see why Apple switched to Intel...



On a side note though, why are we not seeing Tripple Core machines? The Xbox 360 uses an optimised G5 with tripple cores at 3.2, so why don't apple use similar insted of the dual in the new powermacs (excluding the Quad) and then we might have seen some real performance advantage over the models they replaced..

Updates which are'nt really updates are becoming Apples true Forte...

 

[Deimo]

The major difference I heard, was that Yonah's dual cores reside in the same cpu but use the system bus to communicate. If thats the case, instead of say 2 ghz connection, they would have 533 or 66mhz connection.

Big difference, almost like not being true dual core.

Someone correct me if I am wrong on this. And also, it would be the first intelmac, thats why I bought this last ppc powerbook and dont regret it. In a year or so, maybe I'll look at them again.

Where did you hear this? All of the press I've read thus far on the Yonah is that it's the first true dual core chip out of Intel, and that Merom is simply a 64-bit extension.

This is a snippet from an anandtech.com article on Intel's roadmap from January of 2005:

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2329&p=4

One of the first things we knew about Yonah when we first saw the preliminary work in Taipei for Computex 2004 was that it uses a shared L2 cache between the two cores. While the Smithfield dual core processors separate their cache per core, Yonah is unique as arbitrating the cache for both processors. We also know a bit about the further enhancements on EIST utilized in the processor, including a technology that dynamically throttles power from unused portions of the cache.

 

[Kelson]

Not exactly...

Merom is not just 64bit extensions to Yonah. Yonah is based on the Dothan architecture, with Merom being based on Intel's next generation microarchitecture. Merom is slated to have more L2 cache than Yonah, EM64T, 14 stage pipeline, with a 4 issue wide core. Improved IPC with Macro-Op Fusion, and better branch prediction, plus it takes power savings a step further than Banias/Dothan by defaulting transistors to "Off", then turning them up when in use.

When you combine all of this, you get a really slick little CPU, the main weakness being the FSB.

-Kelson

 

[generik]

Well, like 99% of the mac community, I'm in the market for a laptop. I started college this year and debated buying one of the recently revised powerbooks because of their upgraded display density. Right now, I'm using my 2 year old home-built PC. I built the PC as a holdover until I could get a mac, and intend on putting linux on it when I do purchase a mac. The upcoming merom powerbooks seem to be what I'm looking for, but I was wondering about how possible yonah powerbooks would compare. I'd really like an HD display, and a video card capable of playing back 1080p h.264. What's my best bet? Buy a yonah powerbook (assuming they are released during this school year) or wait until late fall of '06 for a merom powerbook?

Also, I'm expecting to get through college on this laptop, and my only processor intensive uses would be recording/music production and viewing video, with occasional editing.

Merom might take a while, just buy now and enjoy your mac for the time being, it is quite a competant machine (except for the heat!)