penryn on santa rosa notebooks?

Hi everyone,
I need a new notebook so I bought a vostro 1700 last week, hopefully I'll receive it by the end of this week (shipped today).

Now the question is, with IDF over, does anyone have a better idea if mobile penryns to be released early next year will be compatible with the santa rosa notebooks, specifically the dell inspiron, vostro 17xx series. I'm hoping that it will probably need a BIOS update and depends whether Dell releases the bios for existing machines. Any ideas?

 

Yes, they are pin compatible. Yes, you'll need the appropriate bios from Dell. But this will be a drop-in upgrade affair like from Yonah to Merom back during the Core Duo and Core 2 Duo days.

 

if i may ask, how have you verified this? i'm assuming intel is not that stupid but do we know if no new vrm is needed (different voltages for 65nm vs 45nm chips etc.) ?

it would be lovely if this is really true (which is what i've been hoping). a 2.6g 6m penryn would be a decent upgrade to my t7700.

 

They use Socket P.

Voltages will be addressed by bios, which is up to the discretion of your manufacturer.

It's all a matter of speculation really. But they are physically compatible.

 

actually not completely a matter of speculation. there was a quote from an intel person at infoworld which claimed a drop-in capability for penryn mobiles into santa rosa platform. also theinquirer suggested that the voltages are within 50mV so a new voltage regulator module ie some new hardware is not necessary. now it's hoping to that dell will release a bios for 17x0 notebooks. my vostro 1700 is already in fresno tonight. hopefully by the time i need the upgrade a t9500 will cost around $200.
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/07/09/19/next_gen_macbook_pro_penryn_chips_revealed.html

 

What exactly is meant by "drop-in upgrade"? I'm sure it can't be as easy as literally "dropping it in"?

 

You take out the old one, and put in the new one.

 

they're both packaged in socket p. so theoretically all you have to do is to flash your bios, remove the current cpu & drop in the new one and voila instant penryn. the only catch i can see (vrm should be ok as the voltage range is extremely similar) is whether dell will release a bios for their notebooks to recognize the new cpu.

 

It is quite a logical upgrade to the current Santa Rosa notebooks, so I think most manufacturers will just put a Penryn CPU in their notebooks and call them an upgrade, without any other mods. I.e: Dell will put it in a 1520 paint it over to look new and call it 1525 or something, but the computer will remain the same and the bios will be compatible, because its a really cheap way to improve the product and sell it as a brand new design.

 

According to Intel, Penryn will NOT be supported in Santa Rosa.

http://www.techarp.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=463

However, ODMs (like Dell and HP) will probably still release Penryn's based off of Santa Rosa by modifying the VRMs. That means that you most likely won't be able to upgrade your current notebook. Take all this with a grain of salt though.

 

Interesting article but that is definately NOT what Intel said at the last Channel Conference

 

If the Penryn chips are smaller than current Core 2 Duo's, how will they fit?

 

The chips aren't smaller, the transistors are. From 65 nanometers to 45 nanometers.

 

Unfortunately it wouldn't be the first time Intel pulled something like this

 

this sucks. i was so hoping that the vrms would be compatible. intel is greedy. i'm glad there is amd to give them some competition. now i'm conflicted whether i want to keep my vostro 1700 or not.

 

YA true for sure the Intel Channel has been wrong before but haveing dinner with some guys from DuPont,Wa they were saying the same things about socket P