Intel's Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Extreme chips

@9:

http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/hardware/promacs.ars

This is a superb article that answers any questions you have about the CPU options available to Apple for the MacPro. Indeed, Core2Duo and Core2Extreme only have support for a single CPU socket. If Apple wanted to stick with it's quad-core, god-machine heritage, it would have to go with the Woodcrest Xeon. However, Apple to have a history of providing a similarly-speced Powermac to the top-of-the-range iMac, so it could be possible to see a Core 2 Duo at the low end.

@10: The Core 2 Duo CPUs are dual-core like the Core Duos, however, they are 64bit whereas the latter are 32bit. This article doesn't go into detail on the differences between Merom and Yonah, but it does look like upgrading existing Intel Macs with the Merom will provide a performance boost.

@ #14

Kensington is a Code name for Xeon.

like conroe, merom and woodcrest

JonECat,

I don't have an Intel link for you, but pretty much most articles on the Core 2 Duo mentions it. AppleInsider has some rumors on the subject:
http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=1877

Swoon....

Isn't there some quad-core chip called "kensington" coming out in the fall? Couldn't that be what goes in Mac Pros, and the Xeons go into Xserves? So confusing.

I do agree with the commenter who said that Apple should stay on the ball with chip upgrades since they're in the same boat as every other PC maker now (except AMD users). They don't have top secret G6 chips to exclusively unleash on the world anymore. And while we're at it, let's keep up with those video cards, too!

i expect there to be a core 2 duo (conroe) in the low end powermac (mac pro) then core 2 Xeons (woodcrest) on the upper end.

@ #9 Conroe doesnt support multi sockets, if it did there would be no reason for woodcrest now would there.

i addtion, you will not beable to put a conroe in an existing imac, mac mini as they use socket 478, and conroe uses socket LGA775, you will on the other hand be able to put a merom in the existing core intel macs

Now that Apple is on board with Intel (or vice-versa, technically speaking...), I hope they're going to be aggressive about their processor updates. New Intel chips released? Let's see an immediate announcement about upgraded Macs. Other companies are already starting to announce their Core 2 products. I'm hoping Apple doesn't feel compelled to wait for a "media event" before they start plugging the latest and greatest into Macs.

Swimming in the same hardware pool as the Dells and HPs of the world, Apple can't sit sunning itself on deck while everyone else is jumping in. Let's hear about those new iMacs/MacBook/MacBook Pros already.

And so begins an entirely new level of pain from Mac buyers griping about their now-obsolete machines (I just bought my 20" iMac in April...).

Okay I don't know much about the differences in the material that they are produced from, but as I browsed through the specs of the Intel Core 2 Duo chip compared to the one in the MBP's the only differences that I noticed were 4 MB of L2 cache compared to 2MB and that it could support 1066MHZ frontside rather than the 667Mhz in the first MBP.

So my question is, will the Core 2 Duo be faster (I also didn't see any clock speeds compared to the first one) or will it be just a little faster and mainly more power efficient and hopefully run cooler?

I have just one question on the core 2 duo, does it have four cores, or is it just a core duo with upgrades?

@#7

Can you give a source that the core 2 duo/extreme chips do not support dual CPU configs. I have been looking and I can't find anything on the subject.

If it does not support "quad" configs, we will be waiting a while for the new Macpros or whatever they will be called.