Intel Gives Away Some Apple Secrets


IGM has already reported on Intel's plans to work with Transitive, the developers of Rosetta. The possibility of using Xeon-based 64-bit chips in XServe has already been canvassed by IGM as well. But more interesting news, as Macworld reports, include future chip technologies to come from Intel which are likely to be headed for Apple's professional and consumer lines.

First cab off the rank is 'Merom', which is likely to see duty in Apple's Power(Mac)Books and iBooks. A descendant of the Pentium M, which still sees service in plenty of PC laptops, Merom is designed to deliver a high degree of power efficiency and low heat, imperative in Apple's slim laptop designs. Merom could use up to 30% less power than today's chips, meaning it would be likely to deliver commensurate improvements in battery longevity. Delivery date? Expect the chips to be ready late 2006, which could mean announcements at MWSF in January 2007.

On the desktop front, Apple desperately needs something to replace the Power Mac G5s, which are more than competitive in the quad/dual core configurations. Enter Kentsfield, the codename for Intel's twin dual-core chips (a four-core chip), which give you, effectively, a quad-processor machine. They would not be quite as efficient as IBM's G5 quads (or, moot now, what chips based on Power5 and Power6 might have been), but marketing at Intel wins as usual, as the aim is to match AMD's offerings, at least initially.

Suffice to say, PM G5 users aren't likely to see a performance hit from the Kentsfield processors, and big difference will be Intel's constant upgrades. The MacBook Pro has already given a hint of what's to come; a speed bump to 2.16GHz, even before the units were delivered. Instead of sitting on 500MHz G4s for months on end, as in the bad old days, expect frequent speedbumps from now on from Apple.