Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Who gives a **** about Merom?

J

jne381

macrumors regular
Original poster
Feb 27, 2006
208
0
Grand Rapids
I don't know about you, but I could really care less about Merom in the MBP.

-Sure it is 64bit, but your machine can only take advantage of it if it has MORE than 4 GB of RAM.
-It is only slightly faster than the Core Duo, nothing to mess yourself over.
-And it will probably produce more heat and reduce battery life.

So here is what I do care about.

-Better design of the MBP, with easy access to the Hard Drive and RAM (Like the MacBook.
-A fix to any persistent problems in the first generation of MBPs (heat, whine).
-A 13 inch model.
-Improve the battery life.

It seems that once 64 bit is a necessity, the next generation of the MBP will be way out of date anyway, so I just don't understand the fuss over Merom.

As the notorious Chuck D once said, "Don't Believe the Hype."
 
Actually virtual RAM is 48-bit, physical RAM is 36-bit, and the CHIPSET is 32-bit.

Still need the chipset upgrade ...

But Merom in this chipset isn't really about memory, it is the ability to use the programs that "may" require the new instructions.

Something that we didn't worry about with PPC much, but now have to worry about with the evolving x86 chips.
 
Yeah! Let's go get him (Merom)! *lights torch, grabs shotgun, and brings a group of bloodhounds*
 
floam said:
Why do you say that? 64bit addressing does allow for more than 4GB of RAM to be allocated, it's not as if you need more than that to make use of the increased precision. Double-precision floating-point maths can be used if you had 512MB just as easily as if you had 6GB of memory.
Click to expand...

I get my info from this post.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/230339/

RacerX said:
That is a little backwards... to take advantage of more than 4GB of memory you need to have 64 bit technology.

The primary (early) advantage of 64 bit processing is actually in the word size.

The best way to think of this is the words we use everyday. Imagine if you were restricted to words that were only 4 letters (or less) in length. How many more words would you need to be able to say the same thing that you could if you were restricted to words of 16 letters (or less)*.

By having longer word length you can increase your vocabulary and same more with fewer words... or, in other words, say more faster.

This is why so many computer companies started heading down the 64 bit road long before they were able to reach the 32 bit memory limit.

My Silicon Graphics Indy is a 64 bit workstation from 1994. The maximum amount of memory it can handle is 256 MB. This is a physical limitation of the hardware rather than the processor or software (seeing as the version of Irix I use is also 64 bit).

Of course the major advantages of 64 bit processing have been eclipsed by the ever increasing processor speed (the same way the RISC technology doesn't have the same impact that it once did). So today, in this era of processors that are so much faster than the average person could really need, the advantage that comes from 64 bit is not the word size, it is the memory size. Being able to give apps more than 4 GB of memory to run in is the advantage that will be most noticeable (be it in Photoshop, 3D apps or video editing apps).



* Exercise: To illustrate this point about word size, attempt to replace all words within this post that are longer than 4 letters in length with words (or combinations of words) that are no longer than 4 letters.
Click to expand...

They seemed to know more about it than me, but you sound like you know what your talking about as well.
 
jne381 said:
I don't know about you, but I could really care less about Merom in the MBP.

-Sure it is 64bit, but your machine can only take advantage of it if it has MORE than 4 GB of RAM.
Click to expand...

Not true.

jne381 said:
-It is only slightly faster than the Core Duo, nothing to mess yourself over.
Click to expand...

It is faster, it is available, and it is easy for Apple to make the update, so I expect it will be here shortly. The performance increase is significant enough to make it worth waiting for for those who don't need a machine immediately.

jne381 said:
-And it will probably produce more heat and reduce battery life.
Click to expand...

Early test reports say battery life is the same as Yonah.

Overall it's a modest step up from Yonah, but to imply it isn't better at all isn't right.
 
I think we'd all be kidding ourselves if we think all that we are really after is the Merom chip, just do a search for "HDD" and "MBP" on these forums and see what's the general consensus on a virgin technician doing a HDD upgrade on his MBP by himself... not very encouraging isn't it :eek:

Personally I really want to see that Macbook HDD bay make its way to the MBP, oh and the cool memory latches, those are just clear innovative and clever designs :p

Merom is just the sweetener to future proof against whatever Leopard will bring, I will strongly consider buy the MBP if it comes with the HDD bay even if it ships with Yonah.

Edit: A 13" model is very welcome too!
 
I don't give a crap about Merom, Yonah was pretty damn fast. But what I'm really looking forward to is some kind of graphics card upgrade. I'm spoiled by my Mac Pro+x1900 combo, I'd like something with some serious graphics power portably. The x1600 is great, but I want the greatest you can get in a 1" enclosure (tough, I know). A 160GB HDD BTO would be nice too.
 
Im hoping for a merom Macbook, but the main reason im waiting is that I intend to do an awful lot of DVD to h.264 conversion and I understand meroms have the new SSE4 instructions, which are specific for speeding video conversion tasks. I guess the software needs to be updated to take advatage of SSE4, thts why benchmarks arent so impressive now.

Does anyone have solid info stating otherwise? Searching about SSE4 hasnt been easy for some odd reason. Even wikipedia let me down on this...
 
PLEASE CAN A MOD LOCK THIS THREAD?!?!?!??!!?

we REALLY DONT NEED ANOTHER MEROM THREAD

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO


:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

ps: I don't give a crap about merom. i will in a year or so.
 
280 what thread about merom? :rolleyes: I can only imagine the next 280 threads that will be posted when it does finally come out
 
viccles said:
280 what thread about merom? :rolleyes: I can only imagine the next 280 threads that will be posted when it does finally come out
Click to expand...


You are right viccles,the complaining about Merom is most likely only bound to get worse.... :rolleyes:
 
appleintelrock said:
PLEASE CAN A MOD LOCK THIS THREAD?!?!?!??!!?

we REALLY DONT NEED ANOTHER MEROM THREAD

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO


:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

ps: I don't give a crap about merom. i will in a year or so.
Click to expand...

This world does not revolve around you! if you havent noticed there are others on this planet. They might care about the C2D... so if u dont give a crap then dont click on the thread and post... jesus ur like a 2 year old
 
viccles said:
280 what thread about merom? :rolleyes: I can only imagine the next 280 threads that will be posted when it does finally come out
Click to expand...

No.. the balance of the threads will start rolling when the Macbook gets updated tomorrow, first :D
 
generik said:
No.. the balance of the threads will start rolling when the Macbook gets updated tomorrow, first :D
Click to expand...

i sure hope they come out tomorrow... i dont wanna wait for another tuesday :(
 
miles01110 said:
At least this thread is about Merom and not Memron.

\sigh of frustration.
Click to expand...

:D

I want all the things the OP wants -- smaller, longer battery life, etc. But putting Merom in the current MBs and MBPs would still be a significant zero-cost improvement over what we have now. The benchmarks seem fairly solid on this.
 
discussing Merom itself boring but the next Macbook (and Pro) update, which will include sensible priced upgrades, more RAM and (hopefully) more HD space is worth waiting for (and the fact that a core 2 chip will be better than any PC fanboys at Warwick) even though the chip itself will only be 10% quicker. It will also be more future proof as at some point Apple will stop supporting 32bit chips, probably when the G5 is dropped to be honest.

The sensible priced updates will probably mean I spend more with Apple as I'll probably get them to upgrade the HD to 160GB and RAM to 2GB.

Also the 15" MBP is in need for several other new features including Dual Layer Superdrive, Firewire 800, and possibly an extra USB port. Hopefully it will also get a slight price reduction too (though I'm not getting one).

I would be very disappointed if Apple don't go Core 2 at Photokina as otherwise they will loose some momentum on their laptops that they have built up over the last year.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back