Spring IDF 2006: Merom and Ultra Mobile PCs
by Anand Lal Shimpi on March 7, 2006 10:58 PM EST- Posted in
- Trade Shows
2006 - 2007 Mobile Platform Roadmap
Note that Merom will operate in the very same power envelope as Yonah does, meaning that power consumption will stay constant while performance goes up. This also makes it easier for OEMs to simply start shipping their existing Core Duo designs with Merom instead of Yonah, avoiding a lengthy and costly ramp up of Merom just months after Yonah really started shipping in volume.
In 2007 Intel will replace Napa with the Santa Rosa platform, also featuring Merom but with a new chipset (Crestline and ICH8M) as well as a new wireless solution called Kedron. Merom will be given a faster FSB on the Santa Rosa platform (most likely 800MHz or 1066MHz), but will otherwise remain unchanged from what launches later this year.
The Crestline chipset will include the next generation of Intel's integrated graphics. The new ICH8M will feature 10 USB 2.0 ports and 3 SATA ports. On the wireless side, Kedron will support 802.11n as well as 802.11b/g.
Earlier today Justin Rattner mentioned that Merom platforms would offer more than a 20% increase in performance relative to the current Core Duo T2600 (2.16GHz) processors with no impact on power consumption. During a separate briefing, Intel's Mooly Eden showed a benchmark pitting a Dell Core Duo system against the same system with a Merom processor (Eden literally swapped out the Core Duo CPU and stuck in a Merom processor, partly to showcase its backwards comptability). The benchmark was a custom Quake 4 timedemo, with the Core Duo system scoring 106.6 fps while the Merom system scored 134 fps: advantage Merom by just over 25%. We don't know any of the specifics of the settings on the systems, other than they were claimed to be identical. Given the results we've seen with Conroe on the desktop, this sort of a performance increase does not seem out of the ordinary.
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stelleg151 - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
A 5" LCD Merom that is pocketable seems plausible, I hope it happens.Rock Hydra - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
Hell yeah, that would be awesome.Questar - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
Did you guys read that? That means Memron notebooks day one - at theoretically no price increase.Dang, I'd like to get my P-M notebook upgraded :/
Anemone - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
Napa refresh wishlist4gb ram limit
2 internal SATA ports one ESATA (300gb)
Robson tech
arrival asap...
sigh I know - all in time right? Still wish it was right around the corner.
xsilver - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
those ultra portables on display looked too unfinishedsony's Vaio U50 series has already been out for over a year and looks functionality wise a much better option
now if they'd update it with the latest tech, (latest low power cpu, lightly better screen) lower weight etc.... it would be a killer
Doormat - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
How many times can NAND flash be written and overwritten before it "wears out". It looks replacable - you'd have to go out and buy replacements every few years (like replacing iPod batteries).PhoenixOrion - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
I hope its a couple of million rewrites for industrial grade NAND instead of in the thousands in usb and ipod products.PhoenixOrion - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
I see that pivot/tilt notebook in my future desktop replacement.spinportal - Wednesday, March 22, 2006 - link
Does the Merom support EMT64?