Club 11

[GMShadow]

...which makes me slightly sad that 320M Macs never went beyond 2.66 GHz. There was a 2.8 GHz P9700 if the 3.06 GHz T9900's TDP would have been too much for the machines in question (2010 13" MB/MBP; MM). Curiously, Notebookcheck lists an Acer laptop that supposedly shipped with the 320M... and a Nehalem, despite the chipset being for Core 2 Duo only. Probably just a typo (there's a discrete GT 320M as well), or... *x-files theme*

Indeed. I’ve got a 2010 polycarb so I’m aware how well the 320M holds up even today - it did make for a challenge when I was considering what MBA11 to buy, but the chance to get a fully kitted out 2011 (i7/4GB/256) for a modest price ended up winning me over, even if the HD3000 is just barely adequate.

 

[MultiFinder17]

...which makes me slightly sad that 320M Macs never went beyond 2.66 GHz. There was a 2.8 GHz P9700 if the 3.06 GHz T9900's TDP would have been too much for the machines in question (2010 13" MB/MBP; MM). Curiously, Notebookcheck lists an Acer laptop that supposedly shipped with the 320M... and a Nehalem, despite the chipset being for Core 2 Duo only. Probably just a typo (there's a discrete GT 320M as well), or... *x-files theme*

The 320M really was a beast for what it was - it's a shame it wasn't paired with anything faster by Apple, or allowed by Intel to be paired with any of the early Core iSeries. Such is life I suppose. My little 2011 11" i5/2GB Air would likely be more usable today if it weren't stuck with the HD3000.

 

[Amethyst1]

[…] it did make for a challenge when I was considering what MBA11 to buy, […]

My little 2011 11" i5/2GB Air would likely be more usable today if it weren't stuck with the HD3000.

With these MBAs, you get to choose if the CPU or Thunderbolt (2011) or the GPU (2010) is more important.

 

[MultiFinder17]

With these MBAs, you get to choose if the CPU or Thunderbolt (2011) or the GPU (2010) is more important.

Unfortunately this. It's a delicate balance they they tried to strike with them both, though they certainly leaned more heavily in different directions on each of them. OS X generally prefers plenty of GPU oomph over CPU power, so the 2010s can power through a surprising number of stuff. Realistically there's not a ton that someone's going to do on a 12-13-year-old 11" Air with 2GB of RAM that's going to be CPU-bound so those 2010s look better and better the older they all get

 

[GMShadow]

Unfortunately this. It's a delicate balance they they tried to strike with them both, though they certainly leaned more heavily in different directions on each of them. OS X generally prefers plenty of GPU oomph over CPU power, so the 2010s can power through a surprising number of stuff. Realistically there's not a ton that someone's going to do on a 12-13-year-old 11" Air with 2GB of RAM that's going to be CPU-bound so those 2010s look better and better the older they all get

TBH another caveat for me is the lack of a backlit keyboard. Such an odd omission for the 2010s when the original design had it - and clearly they knew people wanted it, as it was back a year later.

 

[Amethyst1]

OS X generally prefers plenty of GPU oomph over CPU power, so the 2010s can power through a surprising number of stuff.

Well, the 2011 allows attaching a Thunderbolt eGPU so when you don't need portability the HD3000 can become a non-issue.

Realistically there's not a ton that someone's going to do on a 12-13-year-old 11" Air with 2GB of RAM that's going to be CPU-bound so those 2010s look better and better the older they all get

I was going to say VMs but with 2 or 4 GB RAM... not so much.

 

[MultiFinder17]

Well, the 2011 allows attaching a Thunderbolt eGPU so when you don't need portability the HD3000 can become a non-issue.

True, though in the context of today I don't see many people buying a dock and GPU for their 12-year-old Air, though if they've had one since back in the day I can see that.

I was going to say VMs but with 2 or 4 GB RAM... not so much.

I can't imagine running a VM on a machine like that for anything beyond Windows 2000 or so, though I could see it working out well enough for that or below

 

[Amethyst1]

True, though in the context of today I don't see many people buying a dock and GPU for their 12-year-old Air, though if they've had one since back in the day I can see that.

You never know.

I can't imagine running a VM on a machine like that for anything beyond Windows 2000 or so, though I could see it working out well enough for that or below

The i5/i7 in the 2011 is no slouch. But on a 2010, especially a(n) 11”, I’d not want to go past XP or (very) lightweight Linux distros.

 

[TheShortTimer]

You never know.

That's right. After all, I use docks and dongles with my MBA's and the 2011 MBA even plays 4K UHD videos very comfortably with the aid of a Thunderbolt eGPU - which I bet Apple's engineers would never have envisaged.

On the subject of video playback, I've watched Blu-rays on my 2010 C2D MBA with varying degrees of success. Out of the scores of discs that I've tested, this one was flawless and there was no sign of slowdown even during ultra-fast action sequences:

After reading this article I concluded that the exceptional fluidity of this disc could be due to the choice of codec:

Today we will turn the tables around and look at what happens when H.264/MPEG-4 AVC meets Blu-ray on the PC. This combination is much more demanding than MPEG-2 encoded Blu-ray movies, as H.264 is capable of much higher compression at better quality which requires more processing power.

As you can see, it uses MPEG-2, which presumably places less demands upon the 1.4 Ghz C2D CPU.

However, these discs were encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and nonetheless either play reasonably or very well.

These discs were basically unplayable because of lagging, stuttering and sluggishness:

Why would some MPEG-4 AVC discs play ok but not others? (Yes, I recognise that the final screenshot is of a VC1 encoded disc.) Is the CPU unable to cope with their bitrates? Whilst Googling, I discovered that Sony released a laptop featuring a Blu-ray writer and the same SU9400 CPU as the MBA - which suggests that the CPU might not the culprit. Perhaps the MBA's GPU isn't up the task and the Vaio's GMA 4500 MHD gives it an edge?

As always, please share your thoughts.

 

[GMShadow]

The 320M officially has H.264 decode support, but from what I'm seeing the implementations can vary, especially in quality.

Per this, Apple enabled the support in 10.6.3 https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/technotes/tn2267/_index.html

but it gives me the impression that they didn't expect people to really use it outside of a few applications, so I can't speak for how spotty the implementation might be (I would think it was improved later).

Nvidia did greatly improve the H.264 decode later on, but it wasn't until the 5xx cards.

 

[TheShortTimer]

The 320M officially has H.264 decode support, but from what I'm seeing the implementations can vary, especially in quality.

Per this, Apple enabled the support in 10.6.3 https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/technotes/tn2267/_index.html

but it gives me the impression that they didn't expect people to really use it outside of a few applications, so I can't speak for how spotty the implementation might be (I would think it was improved later).

That's very interesting because Blu-ray playback is basically useless in Snow Leopard. Paradoxically, Catalina wipes the floor with it - despite the much greater system requirements. Even the discs that play without a hitch in Catalina are unwatchable in Snow Leopard, including the MPEG 2 encoded title.

Nvidia did greatly improve the H.264 decode later on, but it wasn't until the 5xx cards.

Catalina isn't even officially supported on this machine and yet it outdoes Snow Leopard in this respect. I wonder why.

 

[GMShadow]

My guess is improvements on the software side. I'd be curious to see *when* macOS got better on that spec - was it as early as say, Mountain Lion, or not until much later?

As for that Vaio, yes, that generation of Intel Graphics was designed to handle H.264 decode and Blu-ray playback specifically - the 4500MHD was just the Mobile version of the desktop 4500HD.

 

[TheShortTimer]

My guess is improvements on the software side. I'd be curious to see *when* macOS got better on that spec - was it as early as say, Mountain Lion, or not until much later?

Good question, I've just tried Mojave and that's fine. I don't have anything else installed on the MBA that's older than Mojave but newer than Snow Leopard to test. I could run Mountain Lion and/or Yosemite from an external HDD but operations in general might be slower as a result due to the USB 2.0 access speeds.

As for that Vaio, yes, that generation of Intel Graphics was designed to handle H.264 decode and Blu-ray playback specifically - the 4500MHD was just the Mobile version of the desktop 4500HD.

Got it. That makes sense. Thanks for the clarification.

The MBA is just a little too underpowered to cope with all Blu-rays. I'm going to increase the disc caching in VLC and see if that might help.

 

[TheShortTimer]

The MBA is just a little too underpowered to cope with all Blu-rays. I'm going to increase the disc caching in VLC and see if that might help.

Even with disc caching increased from 300 to 10,000 there was no improvement in playback. It seems that the GPU falls short of the horsepower required to play all Blu-rays.

 

[Amethyst1]

On the subject of video playback, I've watched Blu-rays on my 2010 C2D MBA with varying degrees of success.

How does the HD 3000 in the 2011 MBA fare?

 

[TheShortTimer]

How does the HD 3000 in the 2011 MBA fare?

It's effortless!

I can share evidence. What would you like to see in particular?

 

[Amethyst1]

It's effortless!

Good to know.

 

[swamprock]

You never know.


The i5/i7 in the 2011 is no slouch. But on a 2010, especially a(n) 11”, I’d not want to go past XP or (very) lightweight Linux distros.

The i5 in the 2011 Air; at least, mine with 4gb of RAM, trounces my 2,1 Mac Pro with 32gb of RAM in Handbrake conversions. Definitely no slouch.

 

[theMarble]

The i5 in the 2011 Air; at least, mine with 4gb of RAM, trounces my 2,1 Mac Pro with 32gb of RAM in Handbrake conversions. Definitely no slouch.

Honestly not surprised here. Despite it being an ultrabook chip, Sandy Bridge was so much better than anything that came before it in terms of single-threaded performance.

In Geekbench 4, the i7 '11 Air goes toe to toe with the 2010 17" Pro (with the later i7 640M chip), which only came out 9 months beforehand.

 

[TheShortTimer]

I don’t wanna be that annoying MR forums member, but that HDD is your bottleneck.

The fabric of the universe is about to collapse: we have a rare occasion where you are in error! 😆

Looking to find constructive things to do with my time during yet another phase of insomnia, I had another go at watching Amazon VOD content on my 2011 MBP because I thought it odd that every other online video service was unaffected by this stuttering/buffering issue.

This film was watched on my HDTV 2nd display and without the problems that afflicted previous attempts to watch Amazon content. I'm also able to just about view an additional online service on the MBP's display but at times you can poor CPU/GPU buckling. (I'd have to see what happens if I try this with a Thunderbolt eGPU attached but that's for another thread.) I don't know what's changed but it's working now.

The rusty spinner was not the culprit.

 

[B S Magnet]

The fabric of the universe is about to collapse: we have a rare occasion where you are in error! 😆

In that case, the universe collapsed decades ago, because I am wrong often and repeatedly. I’ll be the first to concur that, yah, especially when it comes to tech, I am not sorceress material. I’m just (mostly) familiar with a sliver of Macs and deriving educated guesses from past applied experiences! Sometimes they work out, but much more often, I’m just a dork with a keyboard.

 

[TheShortTimer]

In that case, the universe collapsed decades ago, because I am wrong often and repeatedly. I’ll be the first to concur that, yah, especially when it comes to tech, I am not sorceress material. I’m just (mostly) familiar with a sliver of Macs and deriving educated guesses from past applied experiences! Sometimes they work out, but much more often, I’m just a dork with a keyboard.

Pah! Let me assure you that (from my experience) your errors are few and far between and are overshadowed by your accuracies.

I was just relieved that the HDD wasn't the cause as using an SSD isn't a viable option on some of my Macs where I require larger storage space on the primary drive over access speed.

 

[B S Magnet]

Pah! Let me assure you that (from my experience) your errors are few and far between and are overshadowed by your accuracies.

I was just relieved that the HDD wasn't the cause as using an SSD isn't a viable option on some of my Macs where I require larger storage space on the primary drive over access speed.

What size rust are you spinning in that thing?

 

[TheShortTimer]

What size rust are you spinning in that thing?

1TB with 300GB for Snow Leopard and 700GB for High Sierra. At the beginning I thought that would more than suffice as this computer was supposed to be used as a supplement to my 15" 2012 MBP and ironically, the 2010 MBA has become a supplement to the 2011 MBP!

Over time, its purpose has changed and I've come to rely on it on an unforeseen level and this HDD is actually too small - I probably need 3 or 4TB now and I've shied away from considering an SSD of that size because of the cost and articles which warned that heavy video usage/editing shorten their lifespans. A search on eBay UK yields listings for unbelievably cheap units at 4TB (what do you think, too good to be true?) and if SSD's are more robust than I've been informed with video editing, please enlighten me.

 

[B S Magnet]

1TB with 300GB for Snow Leopard and 700GB for High Sierra. At the beginning I thought that would more than suffice as this computer was supposed to be used as a supplement to my 15" 2012 MBP and ironically, the 2010 MBA has become a supplement to the 2011 MBP!

Over time, its purpose has changed and I've come to rely on it on an unforeseen level and this HDD is actually too small - I probably need 3 or 4TB now and I've shied away from considering an SSD of that size because of the cost and articles which warned that heavy video usage/editing shorten their lifespans. A search on eBay UK yields listings for unbelievably cheap units at 4TB (what do you think, too good to be true?) and if SSD's are more robust than I've been informed with video editing, please enlighten me.

Yah, that’s one of those counterfeit WD Blue SSDs which have come under fire for deceptively similar labelling. Probably worth saving your money and just avoiding, as that unit will probably just bring headaches.

Quality of storage for stuff which means something to me, even when I can’t afford spendier solutions, is the one area I’ll spend especial time, energy, and set aside just a bit more coin to be sure I don’t end up with a dud, especially on something as so either/or (as when an SSD fails). Though not in that price range, WD Blue and WD Red SATA SSDs do exist at sizes of 2TB and 4TB, but by the same token, they’re going to be more expensive than the knock-off.

On an upside: they also have pretty good warranties (generally, 5 years) and a DRAM cache inside them (both the Blue and the Red). When I migrated last month to the late 2011 MBP, I moved everything from my iRecdata 256GB SSD (without a DRAM cache) to a 1TB WD Red SATA (which I managed to get on sale here for basically USD$100). It was a lot to spend, but I know I’ll also be using this MBP for a very long time to come and I’ll be pushing it to its limits often, both in SL and HS.