Intel Santa Rosa... what is it?

[Twisted_Sister]

New Chips on the Way
Traditionally, memory modules grow by powers of 2, so you can buy 512MB, 1GB, or 2GB. And the Core Duo architecture requires that memory modules be added in matched pairs.

Later this spring Intel begins shipping new chips, code-named Santa Rosa, that will allow full 64-bit operation, as is already possible on Intel and AMD (AMD) desktops. With luck, by that time Microsoft and third-party software and hardware vendors will have added enough support to make 64-bit Windows a more useful proposition.

 

[BaronMatrix]

New Chips on the Way
Traditionally, memory modules grow by powers of 2, so you can buy 512MB, 1GB, or 2GB. And the Core Duo architecture requires that memory modules be added in matched pairs.

Later this spring Intel begins shipping new chips, code-named Santa Rosa, that will allow full 64-bit operation, as is already possible on Intel and AMD (AMD) desktops. With luck, by that time Microsoft and third-party software and hardware vendors will have added enough support to make 64-bit Windows a more useful proposition.

Santa Rosa is the mobile refresh for Merom. It will, IIRC, contain Flash modules, updated wireless an dsome other stuff.

As an aside, Google is your friend.

 

[leomax]

Santa rosa platform is the successor of napa-refresh(M945),
which will feature mobile 965 chipset with X3000 integrated graphics, 800M FSB (newer meroms with socket P?), a/b/g/draft n wifi adapter , Robson (flash memory caching) , Dynamic FSB Switching...
It will be named as Centrino pro..

 

[MU_Engineer]

Hmm, using Google is actually not very helpful here as there already are Santa Rosa chips being made. AMD sells them as Opteron 2210s through 2220 SEs.

But as far as the Intel Santa Rosa chipset is concerned, it's about time! The 945GM dates back to the Pentium D 800 days and is about as long in the tooth as a mouse that hasn't gnawed on anything in a year. The 965's 90 nm construction ought to run cooler than the 110 nm or 130 nm process that's being used on the 945. Also, the FSB speed scaling would help cut power use, too. The flash memory caching sounds neat and hopefully it will be able to be supported on something other than just Windoze (like a lot of other hack-job type ACPI tweaks.) And anything would be better than the current Intel IGP graphics situation, which trails the Radeon Xpress and NVIDIA GeForce IGPs by a handy margin in most tests.

The Socket P is nothing revolutionary, it's simply Socket M/Socket 479 with a couple of pins switched around, preventing old Socket 479 Pentium Ms, Core Duos, and 667 MHz FSB Core 2 Duos from fitting. It's the same kind of changes between the first Socket M/479 and the Socket 478 it was based on. Also, the Draft N WiFi adapter isn't all that promising in my eyes- it would make sense to wait until IEEE gets the full spec ratified or there will be broad incompatibilities with N stuff like we've seen already.

 

[BaronMatrix]

Hmm, using Google is actually not very helpful here as there already are Santa Rosa chips being made. AMD sells them as Opteron 2210s through 2220 SEs.

But as far as the Intel Santa Rosa chipset is concerned, it's about time! The 945GM dates back to the Pentium D 800 days and is about as long in the tooth as a mouse that hasn't gnawed on anything in a year. The 965's 90 nm construction ought to run cooler than the 110 nm or 130 nm process that's being used on the 945. Also, the FSB speed scaling would help cut power use, too. The flash memory caching sounds neat and hopefully it will be able to be supported on something other than just Windoze (like a lot of other hack-job type ACPI tweaks.) And anything would be better than the current Intel IGP graphics situation, which trails the Radeon Xpress and NVIDIA GeForce IGPs by a handy margin in most tests.

The Socket P is nothing revolutionary, it's simply Socket M/Socket 479 with a couple of pins switched around, preventing old Socket 479 Pentium Ms, Core Duos, and 667 MHz FSB Core 2 Duos from fitting. It's the same kind of changes between the first Socket M/479 and the Socket 478 it was based on. Also, the Draft N WiFi adapter isn't all that promising in my eyes- it would make sense to wait until IEEE gets the full spec ratified or there will be broad incompatibilities with N stuff like we've seen already.

So Intel Santa Rosa brings back the same results as AMD Santa Rosa?

 

[MU_Engineer]

It was a joke, Baron.