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Nehalem vs. Montevina
- Thread starter cdhfootball
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The skinny: Montevina is a boring, routine upgrade (for the most part). Nahalem will introduce four-core laptops and iMacs.
For laptop users, the biggest difference Nehalem will bring will be moving to an integrated memory controller which will improve memory access times.
For Mac Pro users, in addition to the memory controller the new multi-cpu interconnects will make multi-cpu (as opposed to multi-core) systems faster.
This is good information, but can you clarify which benefit applies to which upgrade (Montevina or Nehalem)?
Never stop saving.
Sell your older Macs every Update. Makes me reconsider every RAM upgrade I make.
Nehalem, would be the best time for me to consider a MBAir.
The MBAir will probably stay on Penryn/Montevina till the end of 2009. Even the lowest power drawing chips that Intel has listed draw more than the MBAir does. Of course Intel could attempt to get Apple to move the MBAir to the Atom line of chips.
DDR3 from Montevina should work in Nehalem systems. Besides, think of the poor MP users that are buying tons of FB-DIMM that won't be used...
Nehalem will bring these benefits.
Montevina will bring faster FSB and memory speeds. I do not expect Apple to move to DDR3 with Montevina.
Which in my opinion would be a waste. 800+Mhz DDR2 chips for mobile systems generates lots of heat compared to the DDR3 chips. Plus it would make the transistion to Nehalem less painful (as it is likely the DDR3 chips will work in both systems). I would also think it would help drive the prices down.
For the OP, Montevina is a Chipset and Nehalem is a CPU. Google to find out more.
I'm going for Montevina MBP once they come out. The 2nd generation Penryn chips that will be paired with Montevina have lower TDP of 29w vs. 34w of today's Penryns. Also, I'm hoping they dump the 8600M for the newer Nvidia 9M series which is also lower TDP.
So Montevina MBP should be one cool cat!
Nehalem will be a more significant performance bump, but me, I'd rather wait for the Nehalem die-shrink the following year before jumping into that boat.
I'm going for Montevina MBP once they come out. The 2nd generation Penryn chips that will be paired with Montevina have lower TDP of 29w vs. 34w of today's Penryns. Also, I'm hoping they dump the 8600M for the newer Nvidia 9M series which is also lower TDP.
So Montevina MBP should be one cool cat!
Nehalem will be a more significant performance bump, but me, I'd rather wait for the Nehalem die-shrink the following year before jumping into that boat.
So going on this, if Apple were to ever actually make all the amazing updates that have been rumoured (re-design, alu case etc), wouldn't Nehalem seem more like the time rather than Montevina??
Some think that the introduction of Quad Core favors a redesign.
Montevina is smaller than the current Santa Rosa chipset being used in the MacBooks now. It also uses less power. Nor is it too flashy - only the most avid buyers will note how much of an improvement the x4500 is, or notice the introduction of better RAM, or read up to understand that battery life will improve - a slight speed bump will be all the average buyer notices, so perhaps then is a better time to update.
Likely. Intel will release a quad-core mobile CPU that will work with Montevina, but it will be very expensive. Apple might put it in a BTO 24" iMac and 17" MacBook Pro as an interim part until the mobile Nehalem's are available around this time next year.