Upcoming Merom CPU Swappable into Mac mini?
It is possible to drop in Merom into Mini, one hell of an upgrade path. confirming this is a working combo, just drop the chip in.
Further details are limited, presumably due to non-disclosure agreements for pre-release hardware. Intel's Merom processor is a mobile 64-bit processor due in late 2006.
The Merom is said to offer 20% more performance than the current Core Duo at the same battery life. The Merom will reportedly come with 4MB L2 Cache (up from 2MB on Yonah). This backward compatible capability has been advertised by Intel:
During a separate briefing, Intel's Mooly Eden showed a benchmark pitting a Dell Core Duo system against the same system with a Merom processor (Eden literally swapped out the Core Duo CPU and stuck in a Merom processor, partly to showcase its backwards comptability). The benchmark was a custom Quake 4 timedemo, with the Core Duo system scoring 106.6 fps while the Merom system scored 134 fps: advantage Merom by just over 25%. We don't know any of the specifics of the settings on the systems, other than they were claimed to be identical.
While the Intel iMac also has a socketed CPU, the MacBook Pro CPU is soldered to the motherboard.
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Kind of neat and it ensures that I shall be upgrading my Mini with a Merom chip.
LINK: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=91459&page=5
this swapability could be a foreshawdow of some great new flexibility in apple hardware.
I'm hoping the soldered CPU in the MBP is due to the thin size. Hopefully a thicker 1.3" Macbook will allow for a socket CPU so the Macbook can go up to Merom as well.
that's the first thought that popped into my head as well, allthough it was quickly put the rest by the fact that rumors have pointed to a much thinner form factor for the macbook. i doubt apple is going to make a bulkier book just to have socketed chipsets
I was reading that the virtualization software (from parallel i think the company was) does not work on the Mac Mini as well as it does on the MPB and iMac. Will this processor upgrade help that at all or is there another issue at hand here?
this could be. i'm guessing it's the diff b/t the core solo (found in the low end mini) and core duo (found in the mbp, high end mini, and imac). whoever said they weren't having good performance was probably running a core solo mini. so it might be a higher performance chip would greatly help, especially b/c i'm assuming the merom is a dual core chip.
i doubt apple is going to make a bulkier book just to have socketed chipsets
Obviously not, but the 12" PB was always bulkier than the 15/17", I presume to aid cooling and get everything to fit. Plus, Apple wouldn't have to go with only a 4x DVD burner w/out DL support if the Macbook were a little thicker. So, like I said, I sure hope the Macbooks come in at slightly over an inch. I'll take my Macbook 1/4-inch thicker to have a better optical drive and a socketed CPU any day.[ Read All Comments ]
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