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What difference will the memrom chip

technicolor

technicolor

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Dec 21, 2005
1,651
1
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make in the macbook pro?

Can someone explain to me why they are waiting, and what benefits they gain from waiting besides having the latest and greatest.


Thanks
 
From someone's perspective, let me put it to you simply.....

If you're waiting for it because you get the impression it'll be much faster of offer better battery life or a cooler running machine, don't bother. It'll be faster (supposedly 20% at the same clock speed), but in real world numbers, probably not 20% faster at the same clock speed.

The real reason to get it is because it's 64-bit. I wouldn't wait for Merom because I don't think 64-bit applications will be widely available over the next 2 years, but it will be important beyond 2 years from now, I think. But by that time, I'll just get a new laptop. However, I guess it's worth waiting for if you're buying a Mac laptop (since their cpu can't be replaced by the user), and you plan on keeping it for 4+ years.

And about it's power usage and requirements for cooling.......it's still 65 nm. Building things at 65 nm size rather than 90 nm means they can cram more "stuff" onto the chip (making them faster), but it means things are closer together, and the heat produced is more concentrated (although if the same amount of "stuff" was on the chip, it WOULD run cooler.....however, making things smaller but not putting more on doesn't offer the progress or speed boost, which is what they're doing all this for), so it'll still run quite hot, and still require lots of cooling.
 
True, I can always hope (it is likely, as Dell etc. will have it in laptops in that price bracket...) ;)
 
Oh, and since Merom is 64-bit rather than 32 bit, you'll need what is essentially 2x more RAM than you would with the Yonah to get similar benefit. I have 1GB on my MacBook, but I'd expect to need 2 GB for a Merom notebook because the system uses 64 bits to store data rather than 32 bits. 512 MB of RAM will make the computer unusable, I'd think.

Also, I don't know how well 32-bit applications will run on a 64-bit system. With 64 bit software, 64-bit Mac OS X, and Merom, I'm sure things would be great, but I wonder whether there would be a bit of a performance hit because some 32-bit software will need to run in a 64-bit environment.
 
Abstract said:
Oh, and since Merom is 64-bit rather than 32 bit, you'll need what is essentially 2x more RAM than you would with the Yonah to get similar benefit. I have 1GB on my MacBook, but I'd expect to need 2 GB for a Merom notebook because the system uses 64 bits to store data rather than 32 bits. 512 MB of RAM will make the computer unusable, I'd think.

Also, I don't know how well 32-bit applications will run on a 64-bit system. With 64 bit software, 64-bit Mac OS X, and Merom, I'm sure things would be great, but I wonder whether there would be a bit of a performance hit because some 32-bit software will need to run in a 64-bit environment.
Click to expand...

Where are you getting this information from? There are plenty of people out there who have 64bit processors now (G5, Athlon 64, Pentium 4 6xx, Pentium D), and i've never heard of them needed double the RAM do be effective.

As far as 32-bit software, I'm sure leopard will support both 32 and 64-bit apps indepentantly. Otherwise they'll need a 32 and 64-bit version. Right now 10.4 handles 32 and 64-bit instructions.

But to get to the question, I am waiting for the Merom processor because i'm a geek who needs to have the latest and greatest, while still saving as much money as i can. So I'm going to wait until that comes out, and then i'll have a much faster generation than the current 32-bit yonah processor.
 
I'm waiting for Merom because I told myself I wouldn't until after an announcement. Also, Yonah is a transition chip. Merom and its variants will be the processor of choice for quite a while.
 
aside from the processor alone, i think many are also waiting for the merom update to come in order to get a rev B product.. in hopes that some of the problems of rev A will have been cleared up.
 
xfiftyfour said:
aside from the processor alone, i think many are also waiting for the merom update to come in order to get a rev B product.. in hopes that some of the problems of rev A will have been cleared up.
Click to expand...

Here is a question to ponder: Since Yonah and Merom are pin compatible, if Apple just replaces the Yonah with the Merom, do you consider that a new revision?

Same goes for the X1600, will Apple just drop in a X18-1900 since they are also compatible?
 
treblah said:
Here is a question to ponder: Since Yonah and Merom are pin compatible, if Apple just replaces the Yonah with the Merom, do you consider that a new revision?

Same goes for the X1600, will Apple just drop in a X18-1900 since they are also compatible?
Click to expand...

It's not the fact that they're just changing the chip. Hopefully, problems like overheating, or any problems they may have will be fixed when they release a new product. They may fix problems before they anounce a new product, but chances are, most problems they have now will be fixed in the next or two generations from now.

Also, i don't understand what you're talking about how a x18-1900 is compatible. What is it compatible with? The motherboard? Yes, most graphics chipsets are compatible with most motherboards; however, it's another thing for processors to be compatible with motherboards.
 
mgargan1 said:
It's not the fact that they're just changing the chip. Hopefully, problems like overheating, or any problems they may have will be fixed when they release a new product. They may fix problems before they anounce a new product, but chances are, most problems they have now will be fixed in the next or two generations from now.

Also, i don't understand what you're talking about how a x18-1900 is compatible. What is it compatible with? The motherboard? Yes, most graphics chipsets are compatible with most motherboards; however, it's another thing for processors to be compatible with motherboards.
Click to expand...

First off, for Apple to fix a problem they have to recognize a problem. Which they haven't. Nor will they as the MBP is within their specs. The Merom will run just as hot as the Yonah and I don't see them doing some major case redesign when they can just drop it into their existing logic board. Think about it, 20% performance increase with absolutely no additional R&D. That is going to be pretty hard to turn down.

I am wondering the same thing about the next GPU. If Apple stays with ATI then it would make sense for them just to replace the x1600 with a x18 or 19, which would yield better performance without any additional changes to the current design.

And if they do just drop in a Merom and a new GPU into the existing design, which they should be able to, does that constitute a new revision?

Is that clearer?
 
mgargan1 said:
Where are you getting this information from? There are plenty of people out there who have 64bit processors now (G5, Athlon 64, Pentium 4 6xx, Pentium D), and i've never heard of them needed double the RAM do be effective.
Click to expand...

I'm under the impression that 32 bit software on systems with 64-bit procs simply use 2 bytes rather than 1 byte because the processor is still meant to handle 64-bit memory addresses. In other words, 32-bits WAS capable of addressing any piece of data, and so registers were made to be 32-bits. With Merom, like with the G5s, you need 64-bits to address data.

I think that's why a single G5 could use 8 GB of RAM (ie: 8 GB = 2^64), while most conventional systems with a single 32-bit proc wouldn't know what to do with anything greater than 4 GB (4 GB = 2^32).
 
I plan to use my MacBook until 2009/2010, and even then hope to find a good use for it even if I do have a better primary portable by then.

I just drool thinking about what Intel's chips will be like at that point. I suspect that they will make Merom's look pretty silly. I seriously doubt that I will need 64-bit in the meatime, although by the end of its life, I do expect the MB to seem very slow.
 
Originally Posted by Abstract
I'm under the impression that 32 bit software on systems with 64-bit procs simply use 2 bytes rather than 1 byte because the processor is still meant to handle 64-bit memory addresses. In other words, 32-bits WAS capable of addressing any piece of data, and so registers were made to be 32-bits. With Merom, like with the G5s, you need 64-bits to address data.
Click to expand...

Not entirely true. Intel extended the x86 instruction set to accommodate 64bit memory addressing. You don't NEED twice the memory to be effective. You just have the option of using more memory than 32bit systems have physical access to. And the thing is that because its an extension of the x86 instruction set, you have native speed on 32bit applications as well as on 64bit applications.

To sum it up:
1. You don't need x2 the memory to be effective
2. Programs that currently go beyond 4GB of memory benefit from 64bit memory addressing which can go up to 32GB now I think.
3. 32bit Applications will run at full speed comparable to the speeds of 32bit processors out there now.
4. 64bit capable applications will run faster than their 32bit counterparts because they are processed twice as fast (in theory).
 
darkcurse said:
Not entirely true. Intel extended the x86 instruction set to accommodate 64bit memory addressing. You don't NEED twice the memory to be effective. You just have the option of using more memory than 32bit systems have physical access to. And the thing is that because its an extension of the x86 instruction set, you have native speed on 32bit applications as well as on 64bit applications.

To sum it up:
1. You don't need x2 the memory to be effective
2. Programs that currently go beyond 4GB of memory benefit from 64bit memory addressing which can go up to 32GB now I think.
3. 32bit Applications will run at full speed comparable to the speeds of 32bit processors out there now.
4. 64bit capable applications will run faster than their 32bit counterparts because they are processed twice as fast (in theory).
Click to expand...

Actually, theoretically, it goes up to 18.45 exabytes, but there isn't any OS or motherboard out there that will support 18.45 exabytes. 64-bit windows 2003 handles 16Terabytes of Memory.
 
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