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Intel Shows Off Conroe (Desktop) Processors

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Apr 12, 2001
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AnandTech provides coverage for Intel's presentations at the Intel Spring 2006 Developer Forum today.

Intel discussed their new "Core" microarchitecture which utilizes Intels' 65-nm manufacturing process. The Core Duo and Core Solo processors used in the iMac and Mac mini are already based on this new architecture. By mid-2007, Intel plans to offer a 45nm manufacturing process which promises even faster and lower power processors. In the meanwhile, however, Intel is expected to offer a full line of 65-nm chips (Merom, Conroe and Woodcrest) in the second half of 2006.

These slides show what kind of performance is expected from Intel's upcoming processor lines:

- Merom (mobile) is said to offer 20% more performance than the Core Duo at the same battery life.
- Conroe (desktop) is said to offer 40% more performance at 40% less power than the Pentium D 950.
- Woodcrest (servers) is said to offer 80% more performance at 35% less power than the Xeon.

Intel performed some benchmarks of Conroe compared to the Pentium D 950. And Anandtech offers some benchmarks comparing gaming performance and media encoding on the two platforms.

Intel's Conroe processor is speculated to be the heart of the upcoming Intel PowerMacs and should be released in the second half of this year. Apple's announcement that WWDC will take place in August of this year would provide a convenient launching pad for Intel PowerMacs which were rumored/speculated to be delivered in September.
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2006/03/07/intel-shows-off-conroe-desktop-processors/
rye9

rye9

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Doesn't this put PowerMacs at the same "power" as everyday PC's now if they use the same processor?

EDIT: Oh wait, the PowerMacs will still have Mac OS X. :D
 
~Shard~

~Shard~

macrumors P6
Jun 4, 2003
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Great news, it's nice to see some of this made "official" by Intel, as all I had heard up to this point was unconfirmed #s.

Conroe PowerMacs are going to be great, and it will be nice to see the Xserve get Woodcrest. :cool:
 
NewbieNerd

NewbieNerd

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Sep 22, 2005
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Yay Merom! Even though I'll be getting a used 17'' pbook from a fellow macrumors.com guy, I'm just excited at the prospect of what the future holds for them. I'll be really interested to see what appears as a new form factor for the powerbook/mbp and powermacs in the probably not-too-distant future. Something that will make the current forms look old and lousy... :D
 
Fiveos22

Fiveos22

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rye9 said:
I dont know why, but I think the Merom chips will get the most attention. :cool:
Click to expand...

They're getting all of my attention (a merom pb will hopefully be my first laptop).
 
VanMac

VanMac

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Good to see.

I'm sure we will continue to see continual performance gains and less power consumption with this move to Intel. Bravo.
 
runninmac

runninmac

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Thats great that they compare it to the pentium D and all but I havnt heard great things from it, can anyone post some benchmarks from it?
 
rockthecasbah

rockthecasbah

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it's nice that there is such a performance boost with Merom (20% at the same battery life?) but who here would rather see a laptop that's a smidge LESS powerful to get a lot more battery life? :rolleyes:
 
J

jabooth

macrumors member
Feb 28, 2006
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Wow, conroes shaping up nicely...:D

Question is, will we see a Conroe or a Merom in rev b. iMac?

Are people thinking that apple will get the merom and conroes straight into Macs, or will Mr. Jobs make us wait....:(

any thoughts?
 
C

Compatiblepoker

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Feb 8, 2006
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jabooth said:
Wow, conroes shaping up nicely...:D

Question is, will we see a Conroe or a Merom in rev b. iMac?

Are people thinking that apple will get the merom and conroes straight into Macs, or will Mr. Jobs make us wait....:(

any thoughts?
Click to expand...


IMO gonna have to wait.
 
nagromme

nagromme

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May 2, 2002
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My quad-Conroe Mac tower gets closer to reality :)

PS, how is "Merom" properly pronounced? MARE-um? Mer-OAM?
 
~Shard~

~Shard~

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rye9 said:
I dont know why, but I think the Merom chips will get the most attention.
Click to expand...

For mobile solutions at least, yes indeed. The question will be, will the new iMacs in 2007 receive Conroe or Merom chips? An argument could be made for both...

QCassidy352 said:
Merom sounds like a nice bump, but hardly earth-shattering... the others sound more impressive to me.
Click to expand...

Merom is what Conroe and Woodcrest are based off, so I wouldn't slam it too badly. :p ;) :cool:
 
nagromme

nagromme

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jabooth said:
Are people thinking that apple will get the merom and conroes straight into Macs, or will Mr. Jobs make us wait....:(
Click to expand...
Core Duo and Core Solo went straight to Mac the instant they were available--and those were the FIRST of the big transition.

I see no reason to expect we'd have to wait when Conroe and Merom appear. Sometimes a new model isn't ready for other reasons besides the processor, but there's no reason to assume the worst.
 
runninmac

runninmac

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nagromme said:
My quad-Conroe Mac tower gets closer to reality :)

PS, how is "Merom" properly pronounced? MARE-um? Mer-OAM?
Click to expand...

Oh I just relized I have been saying it wrong this whole time, I always thought it was Mem-rom... me and my dyslexia
 
M

macorama

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Apr 14, 2005
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So Woodcrest for the new xServes then? It's been a looooooong time since there's been some xServe news. But will it be Conroe or Woodcrest for the Powermacs?
 
realityisterror

realityisterror

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runninmac said:
Oh I just relized I have been saying it wrong this whole time, I always thought it was Mem-rom... me and my dyslexia
Click to expand...

I thought it was just pronounced "ME-rom"... ?


Let's keep in mind that these numbers are often optimistic :cool:
 
maxterpiece

maxterpiece

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Mar 5, 2003
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rockthecasbah said:
it's nice that there is such a performance boost with Merom (20% at the same battery life?) but who here would rather see a laptop that's a smidge LESS powerful to get a lot more battery life? :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Yeah, really... Wasn't a big part of the rationale to switch to intel that we would be getting higher performance/watt? Well yeah, the core duo is more powerful than the G4 by a lot, but apple had to put a bigger battery in there just to give it close to equal battery life to the last gen of powerbooks (they still get a little less life, but I'll write that off to the brighter screens).

How about a chip that runs just at G4 speed but uses like 1/4 the power? That would get me excited. Oh, and make it cheap too.
 
~Shard~

~Shard~

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macorama said:
So Woodcrest for the new xServes then? It's been a looooooong time since there's been some xServe news. But will it be Conroe or Woodcrest for the Powermacs?
Click to expand...

Woodcrest would be amazing in the PowerMacs, but I think Conroe is more of a realistic guess. That being said, there is nothing saying that Apple would not do something along the lines of the Mac mini and (presumably) the new iBook, where they have one chip (Solo) in the low end model and another chip (Duo) in the high end model. Of course, in that case, you're simply talking about different flavors of Yonah - I think it might be a bit extreme to mix Conroe and Woodcrest in the same product line...
 
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