The New Nehalem. Is it worth waiting for?

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  • Reply 21 of 33
    mr. hmr. h Posts: 4,870member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by FuturePastNow View Post


    All of Intel's current desktop northbridge chips support both, and the laptop chipsets are just power/heat optimized versions of those. You can even buy motherboards with slots for both (but only use one at a time).



    Ah, useful info, thanks.



    It's still possible that whatever circuitry required inside the northbridge that enables it to support both would have to be done away with in a portable version. I guess we'll see but now I won't be surprised if Montevina supports both.
  • Reply 22 of 33
    backtomacbacktomac Posts: 4,579member
    I'm guessing most people saw the AI snippet on Nehalem. I thought I'd post this link from Macrumors that predicts the performance on Nehalem.



    If true Nehalem, could be 200% faster than today's Harpertown processors.



    That is worth waiting for if you can.
  • Reply 23 of 33
    cakecake Posts: 1,010member
    Yep, I'm waiting for Nehalem.



    From the DailyTech article:

    Quote:

    As noted by ZDNet blogger George Ou, the slides contain some rudimentry benchmarks for Nehalem and other publicly available processors. From this slide deck, Ou estimates Nehalem's SPEC*fp_rate_base2006 at 163 and the SPEC*int_rate_base2006 at 176. By contrast, Intel's fastest Harpertown Xeon X5482 pulls a measly 80 and 122 SPEC fp and int rate_base2006.



    The Nehalem processor more than doubles the floating point performance of its current Penryn-family processors. Ou adds, "We?ll most likely know by the end of this year what the actual scores are, but I doubt they will be more than 5% to 10% off from these estimated projections."



  • Reply 24 of 33
    yeah, aint it great that the Nehalem is soo much powerfull and its coming at the end of year? Cant wait for it . It will be a couple of years until Intel releases a much powerfull processor (as in 2X faster then Nehalem).
  • Reply 25 of 33
    Quote:

    While we don't know much about Nehalem in terms of performance



    We do.



    See above.



    Going from 100% fp to 200% seems like going from 8 core to 16 core for 3D rendering.



    Am I waiting? If these numbers are in error to 10-20%, it's still a massive upgrade...



    YES I AM!



    Lemon Bon Bon.
  • Reply 26 of 33
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by ThomasL View Post


    I have been craving to buy a Macbook since last year and finally I get to buy it on May. But I heard that Intel is releasing Nehalem which is a big leap in chip industry. Now I'm in big dilemma. I am so tempted to buy the Macbook on May yet at the same time I am drawn by Nehalem which is releasing in 2009. What should I do? Buy a Macbook and sell it when Nehalem release? Please kindly give me some opinions. Thanks.\



    I'll give you straight shooting advice: Wait.



    Nehalem isn't just a "refresh", but a major leap. I believe Nehalem is going to be Intel Core3. I also believe that in some cases, Nehalem is going to be Intel Core3 Quad. For me, the deal breaker is going to be the quad processor. If these Core2 processors are going to be Quad Processors, then I am probably going to buy it as soon as it happens.



    Remember you can't go wrong if you wait.



    You seem like someone who can wait because you are only "craving" a Macbook. You don't seem like you really need it or your life is currently depending on it.
  • Reply 27 of 33
    wheelhotwheelhot Posts: 465member
    Sadly us mobile users will still have to use dual cores even when Nehalem arrives, guess we have to wait for smaller processors in 2010.



    Quad Core and 8 Core in Nehalem is mostlikely for PC.



    If quad core were to make a apperance it will only be in MBP. MB will only get 2 cores.
  • Reply 28 of 33
    gongon Posts: 2,437member
    Yet another thread asking "what should I buy", and absolutely no information on what it's being bought for.



    Every single Apple computer except maybe the Macbook Pro is CPU heavy. They have really fast CPU's compared to, say, GPU speed, hard drive speed, amount of memory they ship with by default, and how advanced the optical drive is. So I'm gonna say that for a random person, there's a 90% chance that the speed of the processor is not really an issue in whatever they want to do, and waiting for Nehalem specifically does not have much of a payoff.
  • Reply 29 of 33
    wheelhotwheelhot Posts: 465member
    Hmm, since Montevina is coming, and when it comes the SantaRosa MBP will be on sale, so which is better? a Montevina Black MB or a SantaRosa MBP?
  • Reply 30 of 33
    mcarlingmcarling Posts: 1,106member
    Now is a great time to buy a MacBook. Nehelam is a long way away and the early parts are likely to be somewhat buggy. Especially with a laptop, I'd rather buy on the die shrink wave of the tick/tock cycle than the new micro-architecture wave.
  • Reply 31 of 33
    randianrandian Posts: 76member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by troberts View Post


    You will most likely be waiting until May, 2009, if you want your MacBook to have a Nehalem processor in it if the MacBook keeps its 6-month refresh cycle. Here is how I see it:



    Current - Merom processor (65nm) using Santa Rosa platform

    May 2008 - Penryn processor (45nm) using Santa Rosa platform

    November 2008 - Penryn (45nm) processor using Montevina platform

    May 2009 - Nehalem (45nm) processor using Montevina platform



    Shouldn't May '09 be Nehalem with Calpella? That's the right timeframe for the introduction of Calpella.
  • Reply 32 of 33
    wizard69wizard69 Posts: 13,377member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Gon View Post


    Yet another thread asking "what should I buy", and absolutely no information on what it's being bought for.



    Every single Apple computer except maybe the Macbook Pro is CPU heavy. They have really fast CPU's compared to, say, GPU speed, hard drive speed, amount of memory they ship with by default, and how advanced the optical drive is. So I'm gonna say that for a random person, there's a 90% chance that the speed of the processor is not really an issue in whatever they want to do, and waiting for Nehalem specifically does not have much of a payoff.





    I Had to respond to this post because it takes on the subject squarely and is to the point. Unless you have a well defined reason for more processor power; the processor in modern Macs is not going to be a huge problem.



    As a frame of reference I just got a low end MBP 15" model and it performs very well indeed. Sure we won't be able to compare it to a desktop Mac but it builds beta apps in XCode just fine, runs X11 apps, open office and other apps just fine.





    Dave
  • Reply 33 of 33
    trobertstroberts Posts: 702member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by randian View Post


    Shouldn't May '09 be Nehalem with Calpella? That's the right timeframe for the introduction of Calpella.



    Since Apple updated the MacBook with a Penryn processor a mere 4 months after getting Santa Rosa, my timetable is way off. The Calpella platform will premiere in Q2 2009 with the second iteration of Nehalem, which is why I did not list the MacBook as using the Calpella platform until November, 2009. Look what happened last year with the Santa Rosa platform. Santa Rosa was released on May 9, 2007, and the MacBook was updated without Santa Rosa on May 15, 2007, so it was entirely possible that the MacBook could have been updated with Santa Rosa at that time instead of 6 months later.



    My belief was that Apple was trying to widen the gap between the MacBook and MacBook Pro by having the MacBook be one tech item (i.e. processor or platform) behind the MacBook Pro. This is also why the Mac mini went so long without an update, and only just got a Core 2 Duo right before the MacBook moved from the Napa platform to the Santa Rosa platform. This is no longer the case with Intel pushing everyone onto the newer technology.
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