15" MBP 2.3ghz vs. 13" 1.7ghz Air - performance comparison?

[pjny]

Hi my buddy would like to know if he should keep his Mac Book Pro 15", 2.2ghz i7 with 8gb RAM, 120gb OWC Mercury Extreme SSD with 500mb hard drive now that there is an Air available with 1.7GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor. He just got the 15" last week.

He would like to know how close the performance of the Air is to the MBP because he has to carry the 15" from home to work via subway. He needs to use SAS Business Analytics software in a Windows enviroment(using Parallels) and runs calculations about 50-100 times a day. I think each calculation takes about 2-5 minutes on the MBP.

I heard the new Airs are much faster than previous models. I just want to give him a percentage difference in performance so he can literally weigh his options.

If the performance is close he might return the 15".

 

[fyrefly]

If those calculations are purely CPU-based, then the 2.3Ghz MBP will run them twice as fast as the 2011 MBA.

The i7-2820QM is a quad-core CPU and clocks higher. It Geekbenches around 10K:

http://browse.geekbench.ca/geekbench2/search?q=2820QM

Even the i7-2677M in the BTO high-end 2011 Air is a dual-core CPU and is clocked lower. The Air geekbenches in the ~5500 range:

http://browse.geekbench.ca/geekbench2/search?q=2677M

So your friend's got to make the decision - does he double the calculation time to save the weight, or put up with the weight to keep his time the same.

 

[dagamer34]

Tell him to keep the laptop he has now. Parallels takes advantage of multiple cores for virtualization, and going from 8GB RAM down to 4GB will definitely affect performance.