Socket M (667FSB) Merom v. Socket P (800FSB) Merom...

Is there really going to be a difference in performance? I've heard that the FSBs aren't saturated yet, and will not be until quad-cores come out.

But that is on desktops...

So, does anyone have ANY idea if Merom-P will be that much better than Merom-M?

 

I think the Merom-M to Merom-P will be similar to Yonah to Merom-M, small. However, Yonah to Merom-P will be quite a big leap. Keep in min that they are alot of other bottlenecks that are more commonly used, mainly hard drive.

 

I think there will be a significant difference between the processors. The Merom with the 800 Mhz FSB is actually called the Penryn, and comes its built on 45nm. This will probably mean that Intel will increase the clock, compared with the current, or upcoming range of Merom processors. Penryn also has at top end a 6MB L2 Cache. We all know more cache will yeild better performce, for Intel anyway. Combined with the larger FSb, the processor should be better comapred with Merom.

Also, its worth noting, that with the new Santa Rosa platform, or in other words the new Centrino, along with a newer and better chipset, Penryn will perform much better than if based on a current chipset. Bottom line, it looks to be a much faster processor than Merom.

 

I was thinking of going from a Pentium M to a Merom-M based notebook fairly soon. Not too sure if it is worth the wait for P, unless that FSB really unlocked some hidden potential in Merom.

 

I don't think that Penryn (45nm) will be out until H2 2007, Merom-P (65nm) will be out reportedly in March 2007.

 

Theres a thread about the Merom vs Yonah on anadtech.com, and in it it shows that the 800mhz Merom will only go up to 2.4GHz and retain only a 4mb cache, not 6.

 

Here's some info on the next-gen Centrino, Santa Rosa, which will use the Socket P 800MHz FSB Meroms:
http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=2967