[PaperNotes]

The new Xeon L5250 has dual-cores running at 3.16GHz but consumes just 40 watts. That's only 6 watts more than a Merom. How sweet would it be to put those in a MBP? Wouldn't you forgive the slight heat increase for the much faster clockspeed, 6MB cache, faster bus and memory?

[Simon]

Not an option (apart from the fact that you can't buy the L5250 yet).

The whole chipset required to run that Xeon is not meant to be used in notebooks. It lacks sufficient power saving features and generates far too much heat.

In addition there's no need to use a Xeon for single CPU systems anyway. You can use Conroe/Kentsfield (desktop) CPUs if you're not going to do SMP. And those are not an option in the MBP for the same reasons mentioned above.

[PaperNotes]

What about those new unlocked overclockable Core 2 Duos for laptops that came out yesterday? They start out at 2.6Ghz and can be cranked up on the fly to almost 3Ghz. In normal operation at 2.6Ghz without the overclocking they can handle multiple threads. At 3Ghz they keep heat and power consumption low by shutting down one core while overclocking the other. That is very good for gaming and other apps that don't create multiple threads.

[Simon]

You're talking about Merom XE. But even an X7800 running at its nominal frequency of 2.6 GHz has a TDP of 44W. That's 26% more than the current 2.4 GHz T7700. If you crank its clock up the TDP will increase even further. IOW this isn't gonna happen in the 1" thick MBP.