New Santa Rosa vs C2D

[copperhead]

Well, I'm going to be buying a MB/MBP this summer, probably mid to late July. I was wondering how stable the new revisions of the macbook lines will be? Aren't hardware upgrades typically unstable until they get the bugs out, or will it be just fine?

Anyway, do you think it's worth it to buy the Santa Rosa platform macbooks, or would it be safer to get a potentially more reliable C2D?

(FYI whichever version I choose will be with 2GB of RAM. I don't do photo editing or gaming, just some video editing and typical recreational use)

 

[dartzorichalcos]

Check this out and get the Santa Rosa MacBook when they come out. If there are any hardware problems, it would be covered by AppleCare and Apple will fix them.

 

[extraextra]

It will be fine.

 

[macjay]

Any speculation about the reliability of future models is just that, speculation. There is really no way of knowing until they are released and feedback starts coming in.

 

[roland.g]

Any speculation about the reliability of future models is just that, speculation. There is really no way of knowing until they are released and feedback starts coming in.

Santa Rosa actually uses a C2D CPU. Santa Rosa is the chipset, not the CPU.

 

[TBi]

Santa Rosa actually uses a C2D CPU. Santa Rosa is the chipset, not the CPU.

Not exactly the same, Santa Rosa C2D's will have an 800 MHz bus like the desktop conroe and run a little bit faster (2.4GHz in a MBP ).

 

[Squonk]

In reading that article on WikiPedia (thanks for the link ), it says that the Santa Rosa chipset is more power hungry. Hmmm. So that means that battery life will be less with Santa Rosa, right? The increased speed will come with a cost.

 

[Zwhaler]

Not exactly the same, Santa Rosa C2D's will have an 800 MHz bus like the desktop conroe and run a little bit faster (2.4GHz in a MBP ).

Conroe has had it nice since it came out. I believe they have a 1066mhz FSB rather than an 800, but with that said the Santa Rosa C2Ds will be a very minimal upgrade. Penryn will be so much more worth it.

 

[johnee]

Conroe has had it nice since it came out. I believe they have a 1066mhz FSB rather than an 800, but with that said the Santa Rosa C2Ds will be a very minimal upgrade. Penryn will be so much more worth it.

right, C2D will not really change except for the bus. The thing that bothers me is the flash ram used as an L3/L3.5. flash ram has limited read/write cycles, and when it starts going bad, most likely the access algos will compensate, but when a massive amount of bitcells start going bad, not sure what will happen. 4-5 years down the road, you might have problems (yes, i keep my computers for that long or longer). Intel hasn't been able to test the chipset for that long,

 

[TBi]

Conroe has had it nice since it came out. I believe they have a 1066mhz FSB rather than an 800, but with that said the Santa Rosa C2Ds will be a very minimal upgrade. Penryn will be so much more worth it.

Conroe is 800MHz with only the newer core2 quads and extreme versions being 1066MHz.

Also for macbook users the Santa Rosa will be a step up because it has a better graphics card (and if anyone says anything about how reviews don't show the X3000 to be any better than the GMA950 then you haven't done your research fully.

 

[iPray]

Conroe is 800MHz with only the newer core2 quads and extreme versions being 1066MHz.

Also for macbook users the Santa Rosa will be a step up because it has a better graphics card (and if anyone says anything about how reviews don't show the X3000 to be any better than the GMA950 then you haven't done your research fully.

I'm sorry, I do not understand what you mean when you say "how reviews don't show the X3000 to be any better than the GMA950 then you haven't done your research fully". Are you saying there is no difference in the newer chipset or the newer chipset it better? Can anyone clarify this please. Sorry, I'm in study mode for my practical and I'm surfing MacRumors wasting time before I take it.. I'm newb, thanks!

 

[TBi]

The X3000 is a lot better than the GMA950. However in an effort to get it out as fast as possible they only spent time on the 2D and video acceleration aspects in the driver. In other words, the 3D part didn't seem to be better than the GMA950.

However, intel will be releasing a new driver to fully expose the 3D power of the X3000 which gives it a big speed advantage over the GMA950.

So in short, early reviews of the X3000 show it to be a bad performer when in fact it is very fast but didn't have proper drivers.

 

[roland.g]

Not exactly the same, Santa Rosa C2D's will have an 800 MHz bus like the desktop conroe and run a little bit faster (2.4GHz in a MBP ).

Yes I know that. I was saying that it isn't C2D vs. Santa Rosa because you are not comparing likes. Santa Rosa is the C2D running on a different chipset that has a higher FSB and other improvements, integrated graphics, flash RAM, etc. That same chipset will also be used next year with Penryn, the successor to C2D (Merom). So the comparison should be Santa Rosa vs. the chipset used in conjunction with Merom and Yonah that uses the GMA950 (sorry I don't know the name of it).

 

[Erasmus]

The main reason to wait is for the better integrated graphics. Secondary reasons are Robson internal flash memory, faster RAM, slightly faster CPU, and maybe a massively power saving LED/LCD screen.

Yes, wait.

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