Merom, a desktop OCer's dream?

[evilr00t]

With Merom's lower power consumption, higher multipliers, and lower default voltage, wouldn't Merom be a better overclockers' chip?

Take the 2.0GHz T7200: 12X multiplier (166x12), and it can be reduced as low as 6X. There's 4MB of cache, and it's $294 bulk.

 

[jaguarskx]

The 2006 Merom CPU that are released this year will basically work on the Napa platform; Socket M. However, next year's Meroms will be released for the Santa Rose platform and that will require a new Socket P motherboard.


http://www.laptoplogic.com/news/detail.php?id=1106

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=3180

 

[kmjohnso]

I don't see them as much as an overclocking chip. Maybe as a percent they would be great. But you can get a 6300 to 3.6 on air without a memory divider at the stock multiplier. You can probably puch it higher too. I'd expect the same with some tuning from the Merom, but the FSB is not C2D's problem, I suspect the limit of tech is already close to being hit at 5.5 Ghz.

 

[NMDante]

With Merom's lower power consumption, higher multipliers, and lower default voltage, wouldn't Merom be a better overclockers' chip?

Take the 2.0GHz T7200: 12X multiplier (166x12), and it can be reduced as low as 6X. There's 4MB of cache, and it's $294 bulk.

Not sure about OCing it. But I know of a person who used a Yohan CPU for a HTPC, and was talking about using Merom as an upgrade, once we are able to get it.

I know his HTPC was pretty nice and very quiet. If I were to use the Merom chip for anything, I think an HTPC or entertainment type unit would be the best bet, more than for gaming/application usage.

 

[kmjohnso]

Yes and conroe's have been pushed to 5.5 Ghz on LN2 as well. At least allowing atleast a Super_pi 1M run (i know it's not much). I'm sure a higher percentage of Meroms will hit these levels.

But LN2 and 2+ Stage cascades aside, I can't see the merom being that great. You have to use a MB that only allows a 255 FSB, and you will hit other walls before you see the effects of a higher bin.

 

[kmjohnso]

The board allows a 320, but it won't likely get that high. Anandtechs was only able to push the FSB it to 255 with a core duo (low multiplier of course), they said some boards are have gone as high as 274. So that would only be 274x14 = 3836. Where as on air Anandtech pushed a 6300 to 525x7=3675 on a P5B.

 

[evilr00t]

At a premium price that is.

To counter your point:

Newegg has the AOpen i975Xa-YDG (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813137081) for $260
Merom chips are supposed to be ($294 bulk) for the 4M cache version.

To get a comparable conroe+975X setup, you would have to go for an expensive motherboard ($240+ retail) and an E6600 ($316 bulk), with the drawback being that the E6600 has lower max multipliers, necessitating the purchase of faster RAM.

EDIT: LOL, an overclocker wouldn't get a Merom to pair it with shitty RAM

 

[MatTheMurdera]

Compared to professional overclockers, Anandtech are just amature overclockers using stock parts. That AOpen board is capable of reaching 300Mhz+ with proper adjustments & modifications.

yea anandtech is pretty bad at OCing, they got an E6400 to only 2.8Ghz with uping the Vcore and all these other tweaks. I got my E6400 to 3.0Ghz with no changes other than FSB!

 

[NMDante]

Merom chips are supposed to be ($294 bulk) for the 4M cache version.

I need to see the price with my eyes when it's retail.

That's true.

If everyone starts the whole Merom is only $294, and retail price is somewhere around $350, it will be another C2D pricing thing again.

$294 is bulk, as stated, and everyone knows that retailers will not sell something @ wholesale price right after purchasing them. They'll put their "addons", and the Egg might do more crack and even double the price right when they are offered to consumers.

 

[kmjohnso]

Ok ay so they're not Xtreme, but they should be able to do the similar with the cpus allowing a comparison.

A note on the they're 6400 over clock. They were overclocking a B1 revision core at that time. It seems they are doing much better with B2 cores (3.6+). What rev do you have?

 

[MatTheMurdera]

revision is grayed out on CPU-Z, but its stepping 6.

EDIT: NVM its a B2 i had to update CPU-Z.