Merom in the MB/MBP? Cooler?

Hi guys,

About the only thing holding me back from buying a MB/MBP is the thought of an upcomming upgrade to Merom. I was wondering if I could get comments on when you think this will happen to each line and, especially, whether this will solve the heat problem. Will Merom run significantly cooler?

Do you see any other significant upgrades to either line by September?

Thanks for your comments.

 

Not by September. Notebooks, such as the Mabook Pro, will begin to ship with Merom processors probably around Winter 2006. I would say around November-December.

 

Will these revisions run considerably cooler? Is that one of the features of Merom?

 

Unlikely. I think Core 2 Duo will have the same thermal design power(TDP) as the Core Duo's. It will be faster and might have improved speed steps but I dont think there will be some drastic change in the thermal properties.

 

Also, is this thing going to end up in the MB as well or be exclusive to the MBP line?

 

What about the chance of a complete redesign of the internals to make this thing run cooler? Or should I just accept the heat and go ahead and buy one?

 

I don't think anyone here can answer that...
Buy it now if you need it... or just wait and find out like everyone else.

 

Actually, from my own experiences so far, the MacBook Pro only gets REALLY hot when charging a battery. Right now it has been on my lap for about an hour and is comfortably warm. Even plugged in this one does not get as hot as the others I had.

Another thing to consider is the history of Apple laptops. If you look you will find honest powerbook owners who say their Powerbook got almost as hot. After all my research it seems Apples tend to warmer hot because they prefer a quieter notebook. Also, it is a metal case which will conduct heat.

In the end I have a theory about this. Apple is selling to more first time buyers than ever before (something like 50% of all Macs sold in Q1 were to first timers!) and these new users have never experienced a notebook where the case is part of the cooling solution. I do not believe these notebooks are getting too hot. I have challenged people before to find me one case of someones notebook shutting down or operating weird due to heat. Noone has presented one.

Since I don not trust CoreDuo Temp, I have found another tool. It's called Temperature Monitor. According to it, my Core 1 temp is 50C Core 2 is 47C and the hard drive is 40C. All of these temps are well below the max of 100C.

Oh and to actually answer your question. I wouldn't be suprised if the new MBP's are announced at WWDC in August and shipped in September. I would nopt expect the MacBooks to be upgraded until the Santa Rosa chipset is released, at which point the MBP will have Merom paired with the Santa Rosa chipset and MB will have Merom with the Napa chipset. They have to do something to seperate the two.

 

The heat issue is the onli issue that's holdin me off for the MBP. It's a sweet machine, but the d*** apple wouldnt care bout the heat as long as it sells.

 

Some guy pulled a core solo out of a mac mini and replaced it with a (preproduction) merom CPU...I think it consumed 30watts+ more than the coresolo, which is quite a bit.

Any processor running over 70-75C isn't installed or operating correctly, imo. Even if the top thermal barrier is 100C, 80-90C temps are going to severely shorten the life of the CPU.

Sure your car may have a redline of 6500rpms, but does it seem wise to cruise on the freeway at 4500-5000rpms?

Hopefully when Merom comes out, Apple will have redesigned their cooling circuit. (I'm not trying to be a naysayer...but there isn't much sense in defending apple on this issue, imo.)

 

well, it should be interesting, I think sept would be the earliest, butas said before, november might be a batter date. If you do need it, go ahead, because you might wait till sept, then need to buy it and have the merom come out two weeks later, and that would kill you :0