santa rosa chipset vs the penryn?(not sure if thats spelled correct)

[stevieapollo]

is one better then the other? i was thinking about getting a second macbook pro and the one i was looking at was a 17 inch 2.6ghz 256mb memory. would i be better off with even the 2.5ghz penryn processors with 512mb memory? i would mainly be using the computer for video editing and music production. any help would be sweet im looking to get a machine asap,

 

[daneoni]

If i understand your question correctly. They are both Santa Rosa chipsets, the difference here is the Merom (2.6) vs Penryn (2.5) processors and that is heat and footprint. The Penryn chip is a 45nm compared to 65 of Merom and therefore uses less power and produces less heat.

In terms of performance both chips are pretty much on par with each other and as for 256 vs 512mb. You'll only notice a difference if you're driving a big external display

 

[raymondu999]

Or if you're loading a lot of textures. say, in a texture-rich game. Also, the Penryn 2.5 has a 6MB cache, while the Merom 2.6 has a 4MB cache.