mmm Mac Mini + Merom
03.29.06 - 07:45pm
Apple shook the world when they signed on with Intel as their new source for desktop and laptop processors. This union, while coming a bit from left field, created a new line of x86 based Macs with a serious jump in performance over the previous PowerPC based Macs. The lowest end of these new computers was also the best deal in my eyes, the Mac Mini. This little computer featured either a Core Solo or Duo processor with support for 2 GB of DDR2. This cute package weighed in around $650 for the baseline model which still packed a punch. With this new budget computer to play with, the modding community dove headfirst into tearing this thing apart and within a few days Fugger over at XtremeSystems.org was the first recorded person to transplant a Core Duo processor into the Core Solo machines. With this, you could buy the cheap Mac Mini, and when you needed a boost in performance, shell out a few hundred dollars and buy yourself a sleek 2.0GHz or higher Core Duo.
With this upgrade path possible, you can go out, drop your $650 and walk home with your Mac Mini, get comfortable playing with it, and when you feel the need for more speed, sell your Core Solo chip and buy a Core Duo when prices come down to reasonable numbers. With this upgrade possible, new doors were opened. Now here comes the real kicker, this isn’t the end of the upgrade line for the Mac Mini. Conroe and Merom, Intel’s next generation chips based on an entirely new micro-architecture, feature the most powerful cores yet while running at cooler, slower clock speeds than the 3.2+GHz Pentium 4 that they will be replacing. The important part of these new chips is that they will seamlessly fit into Intel’s current processor lineup. Conroe and Merom will both be supported by the current chipsets that Intel operates the Pentium D and Core Solo/Duo processors on, meaning that it would be possible to stash a Merom processor into a Mac Mini.
Well, there has been enough speculation, plenty of arguments, but now there is proof that the Mac Mini truly is a Frankenstein. Once again, Fugger has done it slapping a Merom processor into his Mac Mini. There was no need for any updates, no soldering, no gruesome hacks, it was a simple act of plug and play. So for all of you that bought the Core Solo Mini, hold out, don’t spend your precious money on a Core Duo, wait out the 4 months till Conroe and Merom are unleashed and see what your Mini can truly do. Now we just need someone to put a Merom into a MacBook Pro and I will be sold on buying one.
One last tidbit of news, unofficial benchmarks will be available very soon so check back in a few days. The gentlemen over at XS.org got hold of a Conroe and a 975x motherboard and plan on beating on it a bit to see what this new chip is capable of.
Looks like Apple made the right choice to go with Intel… the Core Duos came are pretty new and already our new Macs can go even faster with the Meroms!
Hello Paul’s friend! It’s true that the new macs will run faster on Memron. But think about how much faster the new tower macs will run while running Conroe. Those chips are faster than those new AMDs.
these should be possible with the macbook pros aswell right, if they seamlessly fit into intel’s current processor lineup?
Yes indeed, Merom should fit into a MacBookPro just as easily as it fits into the Mac Mini, the only problem is I don’t have any figures on the actual thermal envelope for Merom, I’ll have to dig around a bit. On a desktop, power consumption isn’t an issue, and I would think Merom would be more efficient, otherwise Intel would be going against their PR scheme of performance/watt. Will dig around more after classes today. Conroe will be amazing, not so much in the tower macs but in the overclocking community, there are rumors of hitting NetBurst speeds with Conroe. More to come in the next few days
*slap* MacBook Pro does not have a socket.
I haven’t seen pictures of an opened up MacBook Pro, so it was simply speculation. But the point of this is that your cheap Mac Mini has the potential to house a decent processor with decent clocks instead of a neutered Core Solo. The consumer wins on this deal, no matter what.
Woah… Who knows what other processors can be used in the mac mini?
From what we have seen, all current Core Solo and Duo processors will fit, and I assume that most if not all Merom processors will fit into the Mac Mini. I would not doubt if there was an update to the mobile community when Merom releases, placing Meroms in place of high end Yonahs, pushing Yonah to budget laptops.
This is so awesome! Have any of you built a system with and Athlon64 or Dual-Core Athlon64? I would love to see a tower Mac running a Dual-Core Athlon64! I believe that it will beat anything that Intel can dish out.
Intel Conroe will beat any of the current AMD chips. 2.06 Ghz Dual Core 64-bit Conroe has more frames, about 80 more than AMD Athlon FX-60 Overclocked @ 2.80 Ghz. Thus Leaving AMD in the Dust. Intel Pentium Extreme Edition kills the AMD Athlon 64 X2 4000 in it’s tracks. WAY TO GO INTEL. Merom seems like a duplicate of conroe. but it’s mobile.
According to recently released benchmarks in regard to AM-2 vs s939, AMD has finally tweaked the DDR2 memory controller so that DDR2 performance equals DDR1 performance and in some cases slightly beats DDR1. The only problem is that Conroe is beating the FX-60 by a larger margin than AM-2 will be capable of gaining. Also, I have yet to see results of a 2.06 GHz Conroe, all I have seen is the 2.66 Conroe and I believe the 2.0 Merom, and the 2.66 Conroe was only leading the FX-60 @ 2.8 by 20%-30%. If you have a link to a 2.06 GHz Conroe, please link it.
This answer to this question may be obvious, but will the Merom fit into the intel iMac as well?
I personally can’t wait for Conroe and Merom. I will be dumping my Opteron 146 for a Conroe 2.4ghz 4mb cache. However, Jason’s comparison is kind of unfair. An Intel Extreme Edition costs a CRAPLOAD more than an X2 4000, so thats not a fair comparison. And the EE does not have much bang for the buck anyway. For that price, it should be able to cure cancer or something.
I’ve managed a Core 2 Duo (T7200, I’m a cheapskate) upgrade and posted some notes at http://www.astrogoth.com/mac-mini-merom-upgrade-success-finally-or-do-i-speak-too-soon