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MacBook, MacBook Pro To See Merom Upgrade Next Month?

Dude that makes absolutely no sense. Yonah and Merom are the SAME price. Same. Why would Apple not use the better chip especially if they're the SAME price. And plus every other PC manufacturer is going to use Merom over Yonah. And Apple will stay with Yonah just to differentiate between product lines? Sure buddy.

If anything it'll be a clockspeed difference and L2 cache size.
 
cyberdogl2 said:
Dude that makes absolutely no sense. Yonah and Merom are the SAME price. Same. Why would Apple not use the better chip especially if they're the SAME price.
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They might be selling Merom at the same price at which Yonah debuted, but I simply cannot believe that Intel will be selling Merom and Yonah parallel at the same price. Would anyone care to confirm or refute this?
 
ariechel said:
They might be selling Merom at the same price at which Yonah debuted, but I simply cannot believe that Intel will be selling Merom and Yonah parallel at the same price. Would anyone care to confirm or refute this?
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If you look at the Intel price list (which you can easily find by typing "Intel price list" into google) and examine it a bit, you will find that for same models the price is extremely dependent on clockspeed. There is a huge difference in price between 1.66 and 1.83 and 2.00 and 2.16 and 2.33 GHz Merom, or Yonah for that matter. The price difference between different chips is minimal compared to that.

I seriously doubt that Intel could sell a 2.33 GHz Yonah for less than a 2.16 GHz Merom. Therefore, selling it at all would be pointless because the Merom at lower clock speed will run very slightly faster. Yonah is essentially dead as soon as Merom is produced in large numbers.
 
gnasher729 said:
If you look at the Intel price list (which you can easily find by typing "Intel price list" into google) and examine it a bit, you will find that for same models the price is extremely dependent on clockspeed. There is a huge difference in price between 1.66 and 1.83 and 2.00 and 2.16 and 2.33 GHz Merom, or Yonah for that matter. The price difference between different chips is minimal compared to that.

I seriously doubt that Intel could sell a 2.33 GHz Yonah for less than a 2.16 GHz Merom. Therefore, selling it at all would be pointless because the Merom at lower clock speed will run very slightly faster. Yonah is essentially dead as soon as Merom is produced in large numbers.
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I took a look at the most recent Intel price list for July 2006. The prices for Yonah processors do not seem to have changed between June and July, but I do not see why the prices should not start dropping once Merom begins shipping.

As you indicate, Yonah would be practically unsellable once Merom arrives if it is sold at the same price point. I believe that a Yonah processor will be sold at a lower price point than a Merom processor running at the same clock speed. Whether a Merom processor running at a lower clock speed will be sold at a higher price (the example you use) is less clear but not out of the question, in my opinion.
 
JackSYi said:
Smaller MBP enclosures. Please.
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?
You want a smaller bevel around the screen? thinner? I think its getting to a point were we dont want much smaller. unless you mean a 13.5" mbp.
 
As mentioned above and as I've said before, Yonah is dead as soon as Merom is shipping in quantity. The MB and MBP will both be updated to use Merom. End of story.
 
Compusa running sale!

Compusa is running a 5% off sale on all Macbook and Macbook Pros for a limited time...
That's a sure move to get rid of the 2 units they keep in stock.
There must be something up.
 
ariechel said:
As you indicate, Yonah would be practically unsellable once Merom arrives if it is sold at the same price point. I believe that a Yonah processor will be sold at a lower price point than a Merom processor running at the same clock speed. Whether a Merom processor running at a lower clock speed will be sold at a higher price (the example you use) is less clear but not out of the question, in my opinion.
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There are two different numbers involved: How much a Yonah would be worth, and how much Intel could sell it for. Just because Intel can now build a better chip for the same money, doesn't mean they can build the old Yonah any cheaper.

As a comparison, how much would you be willing to pay for a brand new iMac G5, compared to a dual Yonah one, and how much do you thing Apple could build it for? The value has gone down significantly, but the cost hasn't. Apple couldn't possibly sell an iMac G5 for what it is worth today, so they stopped building them. Same thing will happen with Yonah.
 
gnasher729 said:
There are two different numbers involved: How much a Yonah would be worth, and how much Intel could sell it for. Just because Intel can now build a better chip for the same money, doesn't mean they can build the old Yonah any cheaper.

As a comparison, how much would you be willing to pay for a brand new iMac G5, compared to a dual Yonah one, and how much do you thing Apple could build it for? The value has gone down significantly, but the cost hasn't. Apple couldn't possibly sell an iMac G5 for what it is worth today, so they stopped building them. Same thing will happen with Yonah.
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I agree with you that the production cost of Yonah has probably remained relatively stable since it entered the market. However I expect that Intel will have built in a profit margin that can be scaled back over time. The price on a number of older processors has been slashed recently even though I hardly think that their production costs have declined so drastically.

Though Yonah will undoubtedly be phased out over time, this process will not occur overnight. Until Merom production can be ramped up sufficiently to meet demand, Yonah will continue to be sold. And in order to keep Yonah moving, the prices may have to come down.

Even if you are right about pricing (and I am skeptical about that), availability may initially constrain Apple's ability to use Merom across the board.
 
its kinda funny kinda sad, folks clamouring around like seagulls waiting for an updated intel chip in their mac books. if only the chips wern't soldered one could just update'em themselves. apple have taken one tiny step into allowing users to configure their own systems (i'm talking swappable hard drives and ram, not the "most configurable mac ever" slogan for the g5 replacements), now its time they busted out of their modularity once and for all. . .
 
quadrakid said:
its kinda funny kinda sad, folks clamouring around like seagulls waiting for an updated intel chip in their mac books. if only the chips wern't soldered one could just update'em themselves. apple have taken one tiny step into allowing users to configure their own systems (i'm talking swappable hard drives and ram, not the "most configurable mac ever" slogan for the g5 replacements), now its time they busted out of their modularity once and for all. . .
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Well it might be that the soldering is reduce the height of the board. Macs are generally very thin as PC laptops go.
 
Jeffd said:
Compusa is running a 5% off sale on all Macbook and Macbook Pros for a limited time...
That's a sure move to get rid of the 2 units they keep in stock.
There must be something up.
Click to expand...
that is interesting, knowing that apple never gives any discounts on their machines, but it does certainly look like something new is about to come out
 
ariechel said:
I think Yonah has to stay in the Macbook to justify the price difference between the Macbook and the Macbook Pro.

Consider this:

Macbook Black
- 2.0GHz Intel Core Duo
- 13.3-inch widescreen display
- Integrated graphics
- 2GB 667 DDR2 - 2x1GB SO-DIMMs
- 120GB 5400-rpm Serial ATA hard drive
Price tag: 2199.00 USD

Macbook Pro (15.4")
- 2.16GHz Intel Core Duo
- 15.4-inch widescreen Display
- ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 with 256MB GDDR3 memory
- 2GB 667 DDR2 - 2x1GB SO-DIMMs
- 120GB 5400-rpm Serial ATA hard drive
- Backlit Keyboard
- ExpressCard/34 slot
- dual-link DVI video out
Price tag: 2899.00 USD

Are these differences worth 700 dollars (or about 30 percent addition to the price of a Macbook)? If discrete graphics were available on the Macbook, I would guess that only very few people would actually buy a Macbook Pro at this point.
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For me the 15.4 inch screen on the MBP is actually a disadvantage...
 
CellarDoor said:
?
You want a smaller bevel around the screen? thinner? I think its getting to a point were we dont want much smaller. unless you mean a 13.5" mbp.
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Yes, I would mean that as well...I would buy YESTERDAY a 12"/13" MBP with Merom, dedicated GPU and backlit keyboard...
 
I didn't read this entire thread, so this may have been posted, but the keynote at WWDC ended almost 2 hours early if i remember correctly. Maybe they pulled a MBP revision to save it for macworld paris ?
 
sorry if ive missed it but there doesnt seem to be much discussion as to the possibility of the mbp getting a serious ram upgrade, I just dont see 2gigs cutting it anymore, specially running side by side os's alone, God forbid working in photoshop at the same time.

any chance we see it upped to 4gigs? is there room for it w/out a case redesign?
 
Heres my theroy on Merom MBPs.. tell me if you aggre.

I think "Tuesday, August 29th 2006" would be a perfect day to launch Merom MacBook Pros.

Heres why...
•3 Weeks since WWDC.
•2 Weeks untill Paris.
•They SHOULD have Merom in MacBook Pros and ready to ship by then.
•It's a tuesday.
•Paris is probebly going to have "consumer" product updates.
•SJ said new stuff in the next few weeks to the developers.

So I think the 29th is perfect. I don't see it happening tommorow, but MAYBE the 22nd.
 
I agree that there will probably be a MBP update before the end of September, but I think it would be after the free iPod promo expires. However, Steve Jobs is an unpredictable man, so it could quite frankly be anytime. He may release it on a wednesday, just to throw everyone for a loop :p
Personally, I think Paris is looking very likely, or maybe the tuesday plus/minus one week around it.
 
mdntcallr said:
but... honestly, Apple needs to differentiate between macbook and macbook pro lines.
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IMO they already do. Two of the things the MBP has that the MB doesn't (which swayed me to the MBP) are discrete graphics with dedicated memory, and higher-resolution displays (and larger screens).
 
There's probably little doubt that Apple will upgrade all/most of their macs using Yonah to Merom. The reason this hasn't happened yet is because they're simply not available in large enough quantities. Think back to the completion of Yonah, Dec 2005. Apple announced the MBP in Jan and they didn't have enough in stock for 6-8 weeks.

If you already have entire lines using Yonah, the last thing you'd wanna do is announce a transition to Merom w/o supply.

Merom macs in September.

(my guess is: if they keep the same price points, all of them will transition over. if they wanna lower the price of some (eg mini) then those will keep the "old" chip)
 
The ipod offer doesnt finish here in the UK til the 16th October- so if they're waiting to release the merom Macbooks after the ipod offer, it might be after that date. (If thats what they're planning to do!)
 
zhd05 said:
The ipod offer doesnt finish here in the UK til the 16th October- so if they're waiting to release the merom Macbooks after the ipod offer, it might be after that date. (If thats what they're planning to do!)
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But again, there's no guarantee that Apple will add the new models to their iPod deal.
 
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