It has been rumored that Apple will be coming up with Macs carrying Intel's Conroe Core 2 Duo. If this turns out to be true, future Mac upgraders may have to choose between the current Conroes (Conroe E6000 series) and the upcoming Conroe E4xxx models, the two being different in FSB speed.

The E6000 series have either 2MB or 4MB of L2, running over a 1066MHz FSB. The upcoming E4300 Conroe will support only an 800MHz clock, with 2MB of L2 and clocking in at 1.8GHz - 0.06 notches below E6300's 1.86GHz. It also has no Virtualisation Technology support.

The team behind [H]Enthusiast tried out three core processors particularly for systems heavy on video editing, music encoding music and manipulating images. The contestants were Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800, Intel Core 2 Duo E6700, and AMD Athlon 64 FX-32.

The mission: Determine real-world benchmarks for functions an average person would perform on a home PC with similar specs.

The tests:

• Ripping a full-length motion picture from a DVD
• EncodingFrank Zappa's Packard Goose to an iPod native .mp4 / AAC file using iTunes
• Running Adobe Photoshop v8 and Driver Heaven's testing suite
• Importing a 2.3GB avi file imported from a camcorder
• Importing an 800MB MiniDV video clip from a video camera using Windows Movie Maker to encode it to the 2.1Mbps bitrate

The findings: When it comes to editing video, manipulating images, or encoding music, the Intel Core 2 Duo and Extreme processors at 2.66GHz outclassed AMDÂ?s Athlon FX and Athlon 64 line of processors.

The MacMini came out over a year ago as an answer for those whose needs did not require, or whose budgets didn't allow, the purchase of a Dual Processor G5. A compact little machine about the size of a jewelry box, the Mac Mini was good for everything but the most extreme, high-end video processing, and could be had for under $600.

Now, a Mac user in Taiwan has reportedly replaced the stock CPU in his MacMini with a 2.16 GHz Core 2 Duo Merom. The souped-up Mini beat  1.8 GHz and 2.5 GHz Dual Processor G5s when it came to an iTunes .mp3 to AAC conversion, despite the fact that the Mini had a slower hard drive. In Photoshop v7 - a notoriously large and cumbersome application - the results for the Mini were also quite promising. This is especially significant when one takes into consideration the fact that Photoshop requires Rosetta to translate PPC instructions for the Intel chip.

As for the upgrade itself, it was a fairly simple procedure - and actually a good thing for the machine, since the Intel chip runs cooler than the previous one.

Intel is planning to deliver Woodcrest (the code-named successor to its Xeon server processor) this month, and sources at Apple confirm a July release the first Intel-based Xserve.

In the meantime, Apple's Power Mac systems are making the transition to Intel processors with the Core 2 Duo which has been code-named Conroe.  Intel is planning to make these processors available in July as well. Industry scuttlebutt has it that new pro systems will come out in conjunction with Apple's Worldwide Developer's Conference, which takes place in early August.

If Apple follows through, it would not be the first time its Xserve has outdone the Power Mac performance-wise.  Apple started started shipping Xserve units with 2.3GHz Power PC G5 processors on the sly when the Power Mac still topped out at 2GHz.

On a related topic, Intel sources report that Merom, the laptop-friendly version of the Core 2 Duo, is still planned for an August release. A new MacBook Pro may arrive soon afterwards, depending on when Apple to install the new chip in its products.