FS Bus Fuss: Montevina and Santa Rosa

[danbroad]

Hi there. Rather than all the speculation and the usual questions regarding the 'Now or later?' purchase of MacBook Pro's, here's a question not asked on the usual suspect forums, and one which OCUK seems most likely to answer....

What's the 'real world' performance gains to be found using a 1066Mhz FSB over an 800Mhz FSB [i.e Montevina over Santa Rosa], specifically for MBP BootCamp gaming? And might those performance gains be effectively matched in the 'real world' by simply upping the system RAM amount on Santa Rosa, given the Nvidia 8600M graphics card already carries DDR3?

This is what I know so far...

OK, so the present lineup of Macbook Pro's use the 45nm Penryn Chips, but on the Santa Rosa 800Mhz FSB platform. The Intel Roadmap shows a near-future increase over to the 1066MHz FSB of Montevina. The Montevina platform also opens up the use of DDR3 and Robson 2.0 memory usage on the motherboard.
However, it seems that the increased graphics capability of Montevina's bus speeds are only of benefit to integrated graphics, and given that the MBP's use DDR3-enabled graphics cards anyway, there might not be much difference to dedicated 3d-accelerated games.

I know that there's quad, octo- etc cores and the Moorfield platforms far off, but my question isn't a "should I wait" type. I'm merely interested to see if the Montevina platform would allow, say, COD4 or Crysis to be ramped up a settings-notch in BootCamp.

Anyone know more than this? Always, knowledgable help seems to come in spades on this forum...

 

[danbroad]

As much as I thought... seems an awful many people are waiting for Montevina, feverishly expecting a minor miracle, when in fact the GFX architecture means the present [and likely cheaper] MBP's are just as capable as a gaming platform.

I guess all sensible advice would be on a MBP, with the 6MB L2 chip cache - so make it the 2.5Ghz, coupled to the 512MB 8600M, and then a user upgrade to 4Gb ram from OCUK...

 

[danbroad]

Yes, an MBP it is, but I've already made up my mind to buy in the next few weeks; I suppose that the MBP update is still some 6 months away, given that the keynote's not until June. I actually think the present 'brushed steel' design is really understated and businesslike, so have no need to wait for a new case... If I wanted great design above all else, I'd get an Air...

No, my question was a genuine interest in how much something like the moderate FSB speed increase can improve user-genuine performance given all else remaining as is. There are other forums [no prizes for the names] that have ten-page threads about Montevina as though it represents the second coming...

These threads usually suggest that any Santa Rosa MBP owner will hang their head in shame the second 'Centrino 2' is the big thing. They end with a wry comment about waiting for Nehalem and Quad core....

As usual, OCUK seems to come up with sensible stuff. I doubt that any Santa Rosa/Penryn MBP couldn't handle the next 5 years of computing pretty well considering, certainly with respect to gaming and audio production, which will be the 'play' in my 'work and play'!

 

[danbroad]

Thanks for all the advice. I know that any laptop is never going to give the high-end gaming experience that a good desktop system could, but as long as it'll boot XP and play HL2 episode 3 at a fair resolution, then I'll not mind at all.

I admire the little touches, like the LED screen, the understated design, the integration of the OS and the Apple brand. I miss my iMac, and really only wanted for a PC because of HL2 episode 1/2, TBH! Now my study/bedroom has to become a nursery, it's time to go mobile....

BTW, are there any 9000-series mobile GFX cards in the near pipeline? Or is the 8600 about 'where it's at' right now?