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tictactoe · Feb 10, 2006, 05:47 PM

This article says that's true: http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/intel...ers-153822.php

dacalo · Feb 10, 2006, 06:16 PM

Originally Posted by tictactoe

This article says that's true: http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/intel...ers-153822.php

Now I am confused... I thought Meroms due later this year are the first the 64-bit duos.

tictactoe · Feb 10, 2006, 06:36 PM

Originally Posted by dacalo

Now I am confused... I thought Meroms due later this year are the first the 64-bit duos.

I thought so too, but apparently Yonah is dual core and 64bit.

Are you like me? Waiting for 64bit duos before you buy an MBP?

mduell · 07:17 PM

Even if the circuitry is there, it doesn't do you any good.
Intel did the same with the Prescott Pentium 4s... the chip was designed and fabbed with all the 64-bit circuitry, but it had issues and was disabled (in firmware or hardware, I'm not sure). Later when they fixed the problems they enabled it.

Rumz · Feb 10, 2006, 06:49 PM

Well even if the 64-bit is disabled on the chip, it makes even more sense now that Meroms will be compatible with the sockets/boards that currently host Yonahs (ie the current MacBooks and iMacs).

dacalo · Feb 10, 2006, 07:18 PM

Originally Posted by tictactoe

I thought so too, but apparently Yonah is dual core and 64bit.

Are you like me? Waiting for 64bit duos before you buy an MBP?

Actually yes, I am waiting for the Meroms. The Insider is reporting that Meroms will be released sooner than expected, and if this is true, then it makes sense. That means Intel has already implemented 64-bit designs on current Yonahs, but they just need to activate and/or make minor adjustments.

Chuckit · Feb 10, 2006, 08:17 PM

Why do so many people give a damn about 64-bit? Aside from allowing huge amounts of memory (which the MacBook probably won't even with a 64-bit processor), that was probably the least important aspect of the G5 to most people.

galarneau · Feb 10, 2006, 08:34 PM

Originally Posted by Chuckit

Why do so many people give a damn about 64-bit? Aside from allowing huge amounts of memory (which the MacBook probably won't even with a 64-bit processor), that was probably the least important aspect of the G5 to most people.

What he said ++

krove · Feb 10, 2006, 08:39 PM

Because 64 bits > 32 bits and more of anything must be better and faster.

</sarcasm>

Rumz · Feb 10, 2006, 09:03 PM

As long as the latest OS / software is still compatible with 32bit processors it's not a big deal to me. I've had a 64-bit system at home for over a year and a half (Athlon 64) and I'm still running a 32 bit OS-- no compelling reason to upgrade to a 64-bit OS right now.

People just want the latest and greatest, like krove said 64 > 32... but to the average consumer it is just hype.

Spliffdaddy · Feb 10, 2006, 09:20 PM

Originally Posted by Chuckit

Why do so many people give a damn about 64-bit? Aside from allowing huge amounts of memory (which the MacBook probably won't even with a 64-bit processor), that was probably the least important aspect of the G5 to most people.

^what he said

Zyphere · Feb 11, 2006, 11:39 AM

Really though, how much faster will the Merom be compared to the present Yonah chips?

The 64-bit function is for the most part, at present, useless. It'll be clocked slightly faster (supposedly around 2.3 GHz), and have a bigger cache?

chabig · Feb 11, 2006, 12:00 PM

Originally Posted by Chuckit

Why do so many people give a damn about 64-bit?

Because word length equates to penis size.

tooki · Feb 11, 2006, 12:51 PM

No, it's an inverse relationship: the smaller the penis, the more bits/horsepower/watts/dB you get... :sigh:

tooki

Eug Wanker · Feb 11, 2006, 01:00 PM

I've come across a few people who said they want to be able to continue developing/troubleshooting 64-bit apps when they are away from their desktop, but the key word here is "few".

P.S. There is a good possibility that MBP's will (initially) continue to use Yonah even after Merom is released, for the reasons others have cited here (and cost vs. performance). Personally, if I were waiting on a MBP, I'd be waiting for Blu-ray much more than I'd be waiting for 64-bit.

Rumz · Feb 11, 2006, 01:47 PM

Good point about blu-ray. I had that thought the other day-- if one of the ways the core duo is being promoted is as being capable of playing back HD content, it sure would be nice to have a drive that could at least read it (let's be honest, how soon could we expect to see a blu-ray burner that will fit the MBP when we don't have a dual layer dvd burner that will fit there yet?)

Also more interesting than 64-bit to me is hardware virtualization. Did anyone look at the thread about this on the hexus.net forums? A Yonah (Dell Inspiron 9400) user says that while the bios does not show that the Yonah is 64-bit, it does have the option to enable VT. http://forums.hexus.net/showpost.php...86&postcount=6

mduell · Feb 11, 2006, 04:12 PM

Originally Posted by Zyphere

Really though, how much faster will the Merom be compared to the present Yonah chips?

The 64-bit function is for the most part, at present, useless. It'll be clocked slightly faster (supposedly around 2.3 GHz), and have a bigger cache?

Performance per watt is expected to improve by 30% at launch and clockrates are expected to be marginally higher. It won't be a huge leap, but rather steady development; Intel already has chips available that are 20% faster than the MBP's 1.83.

rtamesis · Feb 11, 2006, 06:10 PM

Does anyone think the Yonah chip in the Macbook Pro can be easily upgraded to a Merom chip when that comes out later this year? I'm trying to decide whether to get the Macbook Pro now or wait until Merom comes around.

mduell · Feb 11, 2006, 06:20 PM

Originally Posted by rtamesis

Does anyone think the Yonah chip in the Macbook Pro can be easily upgraded to a Merom chip when that comes out later this year? I'm trying to decide whether to get the Macbook Pro now or wait until Merom comes around.

"Maybe."
The Yonahs in the iMacs are socketed, and easily upgradeable to faster Yonahs (I've seen reports that people have already put faster chips in). Since Santa Rosa isn't due until 2007, Merom is going to have to use Napa at launch (in !3 2006), but I can't say for certain that the current Napa platforms will support Merom.
So if the MBP is socketed and if Merom can be dropped into any Napa board, then yes, the MBP can be easily upgraded to Merom.

phoenix78 · Feb 13, 2006, 01:33 AM

Im not an expert on this but here are a few good things i have read about 64bit technology:

64-bit is only good for those who need to have a very high end system such as servers, heavy graphics/video, big databases. this is so because with 64-bit you can have ALOT of ram and you can have many processors and contiguous file sizes can be very large and not limited to 32bit restrictions. in short, 64bit will alow systems to 'scale' better and more conveniently from a technical designers point of view.

but for everyday uses we dont need it really... unless somewhere along the track 64-bit architecture enables a design that has crazy performance that cannot be done in a 32 bit architecture.

having sid that, if newer stuff is available then you should really take that and not need to justify taking it. you cant really go wrong by taking newer technology.

cheers,
robM

mduell · Feb 13, 2006, 03:57 AM

Originally Posted by phoenix78

64-bit is only good for those who need to have a very high end system such as servers, heavy graphics/video, big databases. this is so because with 64-bit you can have ALOT of ram and you can have many processors and contiguous file sizes can be very large and not limited to 32bit restrictions. in short, 64bit will alow systems to 'scale' better and more conveniently from a technical designers point of view.

Depending on your filesystem, you can have 16 EB (exabyte) files on a 32-bit machine; do you really need anything larger than that?
There are a few places that 64-bit helps on the desktop, not just in the datacenter. But they're few enough that you won't notice it in general use.