Will anybody notice Merom?

[verb]

I was thinking that it seems entirely possible that Intel will continue to market Merom as the "Core Duo". Unless a user is particularly savvy they would never even know that these newer Core Duos were 64 bit just like some of the P4 chips were 64 bit, but only certain model numbers.

Do you think that Apple and other PC manufacturers will point out that the new chips are 64 bit or bury it in the tech specs?

 

[Josh396]

I was thinking that it seems entirely possible that Intel will continue to market Merom as the "Core Duo". Unless a user is particularly savvy they would never even know that these newer Core Duos were 64 bit just like some of the P4 chips were 64 bit, but only certain model numbers.

Do you think that Apple and other PC manufacturers will point out that the new chips are 64 bit or bury it in the tech specs?

Of course they'll market it like crazy as a 64 bit processor. Anything to make their product sound better than the previous model. That's one thing I think some people forget about the G5 to Intel transition in the iMac, the processor is no longer 64 bit. I realize it's not a big to currently but wouldn't it be funny to see Apple market it as a 32 bit processor?

 

[Dr. Dastardly]

But so little consumers of the "i" line don't use any sort of software that would really benefit a 64bit chip that it wouldn't really make a difference.

 

[verb]

Of course they'll market it like crazy as a 64 bit processor. Anything to make their product sound better than the previous model. That's one thing I think some people forget about the G5 to Intel transition in the iMac, the processor is no longer 64 bit. I realize it's not a big to currently but wouldn't it be funny to see Apple market it as a 32 bit processor?

I'm not so sure many companies would go overboard marketing it differently. It would seem like a surefire way to piss off customers: "I just bought this brand new Core Duo notebook 2 months ago and now it's obsolete?". People are used to incremental improvements, but give them seemingly large ones constantly and they won't know when to buy since everything will be obsolete so quickly.

 

[Josh396]

But so little consumers of the "i" line don't use any sort of software that would really benefit a 64bit chip that it wouldn't really make a difference.

I totally agree. And from my understanding 64 bit hasn't really come into the playing field for many users at this point because OS isn't entirely 64 bit yet as well as the programs. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong though.

 

[mdavey]

...64 bit hasn't really come into the playing field for many users at this point because OS isn't entirely 64 bit yet as well as the programs. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong though.

Does it make a difference for games? I would have thought that games would be able to take advantage of 64bit to give a 2x performance boost for vector calculations, but in reality do games offer better fps and graphic detail on 64bit processors?

 

[jacobj]

It'll be the Core Duo 64

 

[verb]

It'll be the Core Duo 64

That would seem to just point out that they were late in the game to 64 bits...right? Why would they want to point that out?

 

[jacobj]

That would seem to just point out that they were late in the game to 64 bits...right? Why would they want to point that out?

Maybe, or else they will make the marketing such that they state that the world is ready for 64 bit with the imminent release of Vista (64 bit enabled I believe) and that any previous 64 bit desktop or laptop was premature.

 

[howesey]

I totally agree. And from my understanding 64 bit hasn't really come into the playing field for many users at this point because OS isn't entirely 64 bit yet as well as the programs. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong though.

Only real use for 64bit is in video editing, or tasks that are similar.

I do not think they will release a 32bit Power Mac, because the story would go:

Yay! New PowerMac with Intel processor. 3x faster than the old G5 (so says Apple), but I downgraded from 8GB of RAM to a max of 4GB as that's what I can have max on a 32bit system. I'll follow the hype and go for the faster processor but allow my HDD to act as RAM. Blahh blahh blahh.

I highly doubt Apple will release a 32bit Intel Power Mac, some people need the extra memory addressing that 64bit allows for.

Almost all pro apps will run in 64bit (it's only a flag that needs changing when it is compiled).

The vast majority do not notice the different types of P4 processors with different cores, they just keep their name "Pentium 4".

 

[joecool85]

64bit is great. I'm glad I have my dual G5. It does kind of blow that the iMacs went from 64 down to 32 bit, I know it doesn't make much of a difference on a consumer level computer, but its still a step down no matter how you look at it. Of course, the chip is faster and thats nice

 

[cube]

Of course they'll market it like crazy as a 64 bit processor. Anything to make their product sound better than the previous model.

Just see the confusion with Celeron/Pentium chips where it's impossible to tell which ones are EMT64 enabled without a crib sheet. Intel will be just as stealthy with the mobile chips.

 

[SiliconAddict]

They may very well introduce it as the Core Duo 2 and the Core Solo 2. The performance that Merom is going to yield has been estimated on an order of +/-30% while still being a power miser. There is simply NO way in hell Apple/Intel won’t market the living crap out of it. Josh makes it sound as if its all marketing flash when in actuality it WILL be better then previous models. Keep in mind that Merom is so good its what Intel's future desktop chips will be based on.

 

[Josh396]

Josh makes it sound as if its all marketing flash when in actuality it WILL be better then previous models. Keep in mind that Merom is so good its what Intel's future desktop chips will be based on.

I wasn't trying to say that Merom wouldn't be a good chip, I was just stating that I think Intel, Apple, Dell, etc. will make it known that it is a 64 bit processor. As far as performance goes I have no idea other than the stuff I have read on here. The thing I am looking forward to in Merom is that it's supposed to use less power. If it increases speed at the same time nothing but good can come out of it. Hopefully we'll see them soon.

 

[iSee]

Does it make a difference for games? I would have thought that games would be able to take advantage of 64bit to give a 2x performance boost for vector calculations, but in reality do games offer better fps and graphic detail on 64bit processors?

Optimized vector calculations are generally done with a specialized set of instructions. I don't think those particular instructions are improved between 32 bit and 64 bit processors for either Intel or PPC (I could be wrong here). Anyway, they aren't regular 32-bit or 64-bit instructions, so 32 vs. 64 bit isn
t directly relevant.

32 --> 64 bits isn't going to provide nearly as big a boost in performance as 16 --> 32 bits. At the time, 16 bits was a terribly constrictive limitation in so many ways. As a programmer you either had to take a huge performance hit or hand optimize code in assembly language anytime you accessed anything larger than 64K in size--which was almost everything you might find in a game. Also, at the time integer math was way faster than floating point math for most machine. 32 bits allowed programs to use fixed point math rather than floating point, which made all kinds of new things possible. 16 bits just didn't have enough precision. There's more. Basically, 32-bits today is not nearly the limitation that 16-bits was then. So going from 32 to 64 is not going to help nearly as much.

So the most important thing it will let you do is (thoretically) put more RAM in your machine. Soon it won't only be super-pros that need more than 4 GB or RAM...

 

[iSee]

I think other improvements will make much more of an impact on performance than 64 bits.

 

[SiliconAddict]

One of the coolest, no pun intended, things about Merom could theoretically be its support for the MacBook Pros running the Core Duos. Both the Core Duos and the Merom will be sporting the same chipset, the same FSB speed, the same FCPGA6 socket and the same speeds: 2.33GHz, 2.16GHz, 2GHz, and 1.83GHz.

Note that last number which == the top of the line MBP. So what do you get if the Merom is truly drop in compatible other then a voided warrantee? 64-bitness, a 4MB cache vs. a the current 2MB, better branch prediction, and supposedly a cooler chip. The only X factors are:
-Did Apple solder in their Code Duos?
-Is the EFI compatible with the 64-bitness or a slightly faster CPU...bump that sucker up to 2Ghz!!

Sorry to go OT but the possibilities scare me.

 

[iMeowbot]

I totally agree. And from my understanding 64 bit hasn't really come into the playing field for many users at this point because OS isn't entirely 64 bit yet as well as the programs. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong though.

That's correct, it's not even supported for native GUI apps. 64-bit stuff has to be run in a separate process. The opportunities to do anything truly interactive with 64 bits are thus rather limited.

 

[portent]

That's correct, it's not even supported for native GUI apps. 64-bit stuff has to be run in a separate process. The opportunities to do anything truly interactive with 64 bits are thus rather limited.

That's a bit misleading. It's possible to have a "split" application with a 32-bit GUI communicating with a 64-bit backend. Such an application would be as "interactive" as any other app, and would look just like any ordinary application to the user. Mathematica already works this way.

It takes a bit of architecting to do, but if your application is one that could benefit from 64-bit memory spaces or variables, then it's probably worth the effort.

 

[iMeowbot]

That's a bit misleading. It's possible to have a "split" application with a 32-bit GUI communicating with a 64-bit backend. Such an application would be as "interactive" as any other app, and would look just like any ordinary application to the user. Mathematica already works this way.

Well no, it's not the same, because the IPC overhead limits responsiveness. It's essentially a client-server arrangement, not the sort of thing that's really suited to the kinds of graphically-intensive interactivity the Mac is known for. I wouldn't want deal with using an arrangement like that even for something like Photoshop.