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Santa Rosa: really that significant?

Abstract said:
The only thing I wanted to point out is the fact that I have been saying this here for 5 years, and I have never heard anyone else say it before. Two computers that seem different in spec today will probably be seen as "identical" later. I can't imagine myself thinking that an 800 MHz G3 iBook would run iPhoto a lot faster than a 700 MHz G3 iBook, and yet back in the day, people said they got the faster model to "future-proof" their purchase. Funny. :p
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I've never thought about that and it makes sense!
That's another reason why I'm more interested in new features than processor speed.
 
I'm playing the waiting game as well.
Was originally waiting for Leopard & Santa Rosa, but now 10.5 is delayed.
I'm not sure what to do. Santa Rosa is supposed to be released in May. Is Apple going to update the laptops soon or just wait until the Fall? Nobody knows. They sure did take their sweet ass time releasing the Core 2 Duo.
 
Merom the CPU is already 64 bit. Santa Rosa, the platform, just requires Merom (64 bit). Most important things will be 802.11n (faster wireless), NAND (faster boot/app access times), minor performance boosts (from FSB bump from 533 to 800).
 
psycoswimmer said:
Core 2 Duo is 64 bit, as it Leopard.
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Someone said before on the forums that Core 2 Duo is a 64-bit Processor but it's running on a 32-bit platform/chipset.
Was there any validity to that? I can't remember exactly what they said.
 
alana22 said:
But I would never need 8g of ram anytime soon, right? Really, I email, download mp3s and occasionally mess around with Adobe. I think for some people 8gigs of ram would be welcomed, but for me? I'm not so sure.
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You seem like a down to earth person, that weighs out the options carefully.

For what you want to do, the current Macbook is more than sufficient. Everything you mention you want to do, I do with ease on a 4 year old first generation ALu PB G4, on 1.25Ghz. The Macbook trashes this machine with one core sleeping and the other barely awake.

In other words, if you are techie, wanting the latest and the greatest, hold off a while, but if you just want to be productive with a system that works, and will work for years to come, buy now and enjoy. As said, my PB is still going from strenght to strenght, only needed a new battery recently as the old one wasn't holding it's charge very well anymore. You are likely to get a lot of milleage out of the current Macbook line up.
 
Vidd said:
Someone said before on the forums that Core 2 Duo is a 64-bit Processor but it's running on a 32-bit platform/chipset.
Was there any validity to that? I can't remember exactly what they said.
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That's what I'm talking about. Yes, the Merom processor is a 64-bit processor. But it's currently running on the Centrino Napa platform, which is 32-bit. Therefore, you're limited to 4GB of ram and all of the regular 32-bit limitations. The Santa Rosa chipset (Crestline) is 64-bit, so it's going to give you a maximum ram amount of 16TB. Of course, there's no 8TB ram sticks, so you wont get 16TB of ram, but it will allow for 8 or 16GB of ram in a year or two when we get 4 and 8GB sticks.

In addition to this, you'll get the 2nd generation Merom processors. Most likely for Macbook Pros, this will mean a 2.4GHz and 2.6GHz configuration. Also, you'll get a faster 800MHz fsb.
 
zioxide said:
That's what I'm talking about. Yes, the Merom processor is a 64-bit processor. But it's currently running on the Centrino Napa platform, which is 32-bit. Therefore, you're limited to 4GB of ram and all of the regular 32-bit limitations.
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Ah, thanks for explaining that.
 
zioxide said:
The Santa Rosa chipset (Crestline) is 64-bit, so it's going to give you a maximum ram amount of 16TB. Of course, there's no 8TB ram sticks, so you wont get 16TB of ram, but it will allow for 8 or 16GB of ram in a year or two when we get 4 and 8GB sticks.
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You have to look at the physical RAM addressing, which isn't 64-bit in the C2D, it is 36-bit physical memory addressing -- or 64GB Memory.

Of course the chipsets generally are being stepped toward that slowly by Intel.

So Santa Rosa will either be 4GB or 8GB maximum memory when it ships, whatever Intel is likely to support -- which seems more likely to be 8GB, hopefully.
 
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