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Kentsfield preview up, the future processor in Mac Pro?

Pressure

Pressure

macrumors 603
Original poster
May 30, 2006
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As rumours have stated, Tom's Hardware have played around with the quad core Core 2 Duo aka Kentsfield.

Read about it here and be happy well-knowing that Apple decided to go to the Intel route instead of AMD ;)

To put it gently, it destroys everything else on the market.

If you want to see what enthusiasts have been doing with Kentsfield, I strongly suggest you read-up at Xtremesystems Forums - Intel section.

If you have been hearing about Clovertown, the 8-core processor you are in luck. This thread has some preliminary numbers to go by.

Post your thoughts :)
 
There is a chance Apple will do what they did a year ago -> Replace their 2 CPU Quad systems with a single chip Quad and then introduce a higher Mac Pro with dual Quads (Clovertons).

I don't think they could justify making all machines 8 core, but who knows. I also didn't think their last Mac Pro would be all Quad cores!

Only time will tell. I just hope that Cloverton will be 100% backwards compatible. That way when I get some extra $$ in a year I can pop them into my current Mac Pro. It should be much cheaper than buying a new machine!
 
Pressure said:
As rumours have stated, Tom's Hardware have played around with the quad core Core 2 Duo aka Kentsfield.

Read about it here and be happy well-knowing that Apple decided to go to the Intel route instead of AMD ;)

To put it gently, it destroys everything else on the market.

If you want to see what enthusiasts have been doing with Kentsfield, I strongly suggest you read-up at Xtremesystems Forums - Intel section.

If you have been hearing about Clovertown, the 8-core processor you are in luck. This thread has some preliminary numbers to go by.

Post your thoughts :)
Click to expand...

I read the review, very very impressive performance, especially on the video benchmarks, if apples pro apps are threaded effectively for such a large number of cores then the Mac Pro might see them, but with their HUGE power consumption... it wont go into the imac:rolleyes:
 
I didn't understand any of that except:

- It uses a LOT of power
- It's VERY hot.

Will Clovertown be cooler because it's a proper quad-core whereas Kentsfield is two dual-cores mashed together?
 
Chundles said:
I didn't understand any of that except:

- It uses a LOT of power
- It's VERY hot.

Will Clovertown be cooler because it's a proper quad-core whereas Kentsfield is two dual-cores mashed together?
Click to expand...

Ehm, it's 4-cores in one . . . of course it will use power.

The maximum temperature were around 66° C with the standard Intel supplied heatsink (which we know sucks by the way ;) ).

How hot were my MacBook Pro again? Oh yeah, it idles around that :p
 
I don't see how Clovertown will be cooler. Kentsfield may be two Conroes mashed together, but Clovertown is two Woodcrests mashed together.
 
Pressure said:
Ehm, it's 4-cores in one . . . of course it will use power.

The maximum temperature were around 66° C with the standard Intel supplied heatsink (which we know sucks by the way ;) ).

How hot were my MacBook Pro again? Oh yeah, it idles around that :p
Click to expand...


Ye but what kind of cooling does the MacBook have in comparison to the Kentsfield?
 
Lollypop said:
Ye but what kind of cooling does the MacBook have in comparison to the Kentsfield?
Click to expand...

All I am saying is that 66° C is not unreasonable for a desktop chip.

Just look at the last generation of NetBurst processors aka Pentium 4.

They also had a TDP of 130W but were only dual-core.

Remember that the Mac Pro comes with a 1200 Watt Powersupply. It will have no trouble running two Kentsfield.
 
Pressure said:
All I am saying is that 66° C is not unreasonable for a desktop chip.

Just look at the last generation of NetBurst processors aka Pentium 4.

They also had a TDP of 130W but were only dual-core.

Remember that the Mac Pro comes with a 1200 Watt Powersupply. It will have no trouble running two Kentsfield.
Click to expand...


Just because past intel cpus ran that hot doesn't make it right. Its down right wrong actually. Too hot. Where in the world did you find a 1200 watt power supply? I don't think thats right. I never seen one that high anywhere.
 
I can't remember - are the Clovertown CPUs going to be drop-in replacements for the current Woodcrests? That extends the life of a Mac Pro enormously if I can double my cores in three years.
 
milozauckerman said:
I can't remember - are the Clovertown CPUs going to be drop-in replacements for the current Woodcrests? That extends the life of a Mac Pro enormously if I can double my cores in three years.
Click to expand...

Clovertown yes but not Kentsfield, in fact I don't Kentsfield will EVER grace a Mac Pro, going to Kentsfield means going to a different chipset, regular DDR2 and lose multiprocessor capability.

I could see Apple replacing the Woodcrests with Clovertown and adding an ultra high end 8 core system but I don't see Kentsfield going anywhere but PCs and maybe iMac in the future or a headless mac thats less expensive than Mac Pro.
 
Yeah, I know the difference between Kentsfield and Clovertown - that's why I asked about the latter.

Now, would I be happier if they'd just go to Kentsfield and let me buy normal (but expensive) RAM? Yes. But I'm pretty sure by now that Apple just hates me.

And there's no way Kentsfield goes into the iMac in its current (or any similar) form factor - and I don't see Jobs authorizing a bulked-up AIO again, so just assume that the iMac will be following the laptop path from here on out.
 
Hrm...seems Kenstfield is hotter than i'd hoped based on Intel's history with putting 2 procs onto one socket, but I wouldn't rule it out just yet. Intel has in the past revised processors with much lower TDPs...some of the Pentium Ds at 130W were recently replaced with identically clocked versions running at only 95W.

I'd say Intel may well have tricks up their sleeve yet.....
 
I removed the shield from my cpus in my mac pro then felt the heatsink while it was running and it wasn't even warm. I bet the new chip can go into the mac pro no problem.
 
If only Apple would release a different tower but for Core 2 Duo (Conroe) chips.

That way we could get better performance out of that one if we dropped a 4-core Kentsfield into it. FB-DIMM are really hampering the performance of the Quad-core Mac Pro.
 
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