HELP: 13 MBA versus MBP/OWC SSD performance?

[jazz1]

I mostly run from meeting to meeting all day long and because of the battery like of my pre-unibody 15" MBP I have to bring along my charger as well. So, I am looking for something lighter and am hoping to leave my charger in my office when I am running around.

I go to several meetings a day around campus. I have an iPad and a 15" MBP. The iPad goes with me because it is light, and I know the battery is going to last. I don't need the power, or the weight of the MBP while on the go.

Interestingly enough I get far less disapproving looks from my peers in meeting if I access the iPad over the MBP. I used to think it was rude to be hammering away on a laptop during a meeting. However, I guess I've joined that "rude" crowd. It comes in handy getting information in real time while in meetings. I don't have to tell people I'll get back to them. We can come to decisions faster.

I think either one of the Airs would be great for meetings. I'm hoping their great look and utility will make people more accepting of having them used in meetings.

 

[miata]

It seems to be a pretty easy decision. I know the MBA is sexy. But for your needs there is no question you should go with the Pro.

Don't you just hate those people that tell you what you don't want to hear?

Seriously, I approeciate the feedback kkapoor.

BTW, here is the quote from another thread where I go into detail:

I really need to upgrade my old 15" MBP and have been really impressed with what I have seen so far with the 13" MBA. After seeing the MBA I cannot imagine buying a new system with an internal HDD and Optical drive. Just does not make sense.

On the other hand, I am a pretty serious at multi-tasking and wonder if the MBA will be able to keep up. I've been using higher end MPB class Macs for around 10 years now, and may be taking certain things for granted.

First, here is my current system:

15" MBP Early 2008 2.5 GHz C2D 6 MB L2 8600M GT, 320 GB 7200 RPM

Now, here are the list of apps I almost always have open at work:

- Mail with one browser, 3-4 notes windows open and 4-5 messages open
- Adium
- MS/Entourage
- MS/PowerPoint with 5-10 slide sets open
- MS/Excel with 5-10 spreadsheets open
- MS/Word with a couple of docs
- Preview with 3-5 docs
- Camino with 3-5 windows open (Flash blocked)
- Firefox with 3-4 windows open (Flash blocked)
- Address Book

I quit usingFusion, so good so far? Then I go home where I start doing video editing with my 1080 HD AVCHD footage. I don't close any of my work stuff, because I often have late night and early morning calls. At home add the following apps.

- iMovie for video editing
- Toast for burning Blu-ray discs
- Voltaic (AVCHD video encoding)

The next part is what makes me nervous.

While pulling in AVCHD footage via an SD card reader in my ExpressCard slot and writing to a Firewire 800 disk I am burning a Blu-ray movie from Toast via my FW400 port. At the same time I might be using Carbon Copy Cloner to update my system to a different 2.5" external Firewire 800 drive. Oh yeah. Time Machine comes around once an hour and wants to backup to my Airport Extreme over ethernet.

Will I be able to do all of this with a MBA? I am especially interested in knowing if I will have enough I/O bandwidth. I'll be going from a machine with FW800, FW400, 2 USB2 ports, and ethernet to a machine that just has 2 USB2 ports. I did do a little test with USB and it takes 2.5x the time to copy a file compared to FW800. I also verified that iMovie will let me scrub HD video in with data connected via USB2. The only problem was that I did all of this on a MBP. The biggest let down for me from the Air announcements was the absence of a FW800 port.

Has anybody out there tried to push this much I/O through a MBA?

Now does anybody want to challenge kkapoor?

 

[Philflow]

Actually, I do pretty serious multi-tasking at work and it gets worse at home.

You do understand that "email, web browsing, MS/Office" does not equate serious multi tasking? Just checking.

Many people think that having a couple of browser windows, their mail client and some office programs open at the same time is the same as multi tasking. 'Multi tasking' like this does not create real stress on CPU nor storage. It only needs enough memory.

The OWC Sandforce drives do beat the SSD in the Air when it comes to real serious multi tasking. But the amount of people that actually do this kind of multi tasking on a laptop is really small.

Edit: I'm just reading your post above now. No question, the MBP with 8GB and OWC is the much better choice for you. A CPU upgrade would be nice too.

 

[Bizuser]

MBA vs MBP Performance

Just before the new MBA launch bought MBP 2.4GHz with 250GB and the most important, 8GB. As expected, the biggest and most welcome effect was a major boost in performance due to leaving behind the slowness caused by swapping with only 2GB memory. Just could not see the benefit of more GHz or an SSD at this stage.

Stress that MBA is the best form factor and weight vs performance tool one can get, and hate to say that leaving it behind hurts the most in this change.

The 4GB configuration is the key improvement in the new MBA, it would be difficult to believe anything else would impact the performance too much. Of course the SSD's will have a good plus as well.

I have continuously open Excel, Word, Safari, PowerPoint, Skype, iCal, Address BookPreview, Mail, SW development environment, video streamer, plenty of times iPhoto and iTunes, and the real change was getting 4x memory increase, now never needing to close any of these applications; checking the memory usage with barely no swapping used at all, and a spare 1+GB free memory.

So I would think the 2GB version of the new MBA would give little if any improvement, 4GB quite a lot for the next year or so. But believe or not, the web material plus all the new material coming in you want it or not is again reaching the limit of the 4GB memory very soon, and you'll hit the boundary of swapping starting to eat in the perf again.

Knowing that I will need to get a 16GB MB(P) in a year or so, I bet will see soon requests coming in of 8GB MBA's in these blogs as well.

-------

I'm looking at getting an upgrade for work from my 15' MBP, and my company wants me to keep the price below $2000. These 2 options are about the same price, so I was wondering about performance.

- 13" MBA, 2.13 GHz, 6 MB L2, 4GB RAM, 256 SSD: $1,828
- 13" MBP, 2.4 GHz, 3 MB L2, 8GB RAM, 256 OWC SSD: $1,988

Will there be a significant difference between the two systems in performance?

I mostly use the system for work stuff: email, web browsing, MS/Office. If I get the MBP I would probably use it for video instead of using my old MBP. I do realize the other advantages of the two systems:

MBA: less weight, higher screen resolution, size - thinner
MBP: battery life, Firewire 800, Gig-Ethernet, lighted keyboard

 

[runnin17]

The OWC SSD has a Sandforce controller. It will outperform the MBA's Toshiba SSD in synthetic benchmarks significantly.

However, the real world usage is what people are wanting to know about. The OWC SSD will likely shave a few seconds here and there, but given the size benefit and battery life of the MBA that would be my choice.

 

[WardC]

Are you sure? The "new" MacBook Air NAND Flash is SLOWER than the OWC Sandforce SSD? The OWC SSDs use an older standard SATA interface to connect just like a hard drive, while the new NAND Flash storage is much smaller, hardwired, and uses new drivers to speed up performance. I would expect the new storage to be instantanous like an iPad, unlike traditional SSD drives. Maybe I am wrong. This is a different type of NAND Flash, not an SSD.

 

[miata]

Just before the new MBA launch bought MBP 2.4GHz with 250GB and the most important, 8GB. As expected, the biggest and most welcome effect was a major boost in performance due to leaving behind the slowness caused by swapping with only 2GB memory. Just could not see the benefit of more GHz or an SSD at this stage.

Stress that MBA is the best form factor and weight vs performance tool one can get, and hate to say that leaving it behind hurts the most in this change.

The 4GB configuration is the key improvement in the new MBA, it would be difficult to believe anything else would impact the performance too much. Of course the SSD's will have a good plus as well.

I have continuously open Excel, Word, Safari, PowerPoint, Skype, iCal, Address BookPreview, Mail, SW development environment, video streamer, plenty of times iPhoto and iTunes, and the real change was getting 4x memory increase, now never needing to close any of these applications; checking the memory usage with barely no swapping used at all, and a spare 1+GB free memory.

So I would think the 2GB version of the new MBA would give little if any improvement, 4GB quite a lot for the next year or so. But believe or not, the web material plus all the new material coming in you want it or not is again reaching the limit of the 4GB memory very soon, and you'll hit the boundary of swapping starting to eat in the perf again.

Knowing that I will need to get a 16GB MB(P) in a year or so, I bet will see soon requests coming in of 8GB MBA's in these blogs as well.

-------

I've been in the habit of buying the base MBP class model for quite now. The first thing I do is max out the RAM and install a 7200 HDD to give the best price/performance.

Right now the plan is to get a refurbed 15" MBP i5 with base 4 GB and and a 256GB OWC SSD. I'll see how that goes and upgrade to 8 GB if need be.

The only thing I don't understand is the importance of RAM when you have SSD. Do you reach the point of diminishing returns sooner when you have SSD?

 

[cluthz]

If you multitask a lot CPU performance is coming into play.
The i5 is hands down much faster.

I came from a 2.2GHz MBP to the i5 and the i5 is anywhere from 30-100% faster than the C2D in CPU intensive tasks.

Unless your old MBP is dying, why not just buy a OWC or Vertex2 SSD, it will be a lot cheaper and you can upgrade in a year or so when Sandy Bridge is out.

 

[miata]

If you multitask a lot CPU performance is coming into play.
The i5 is hands down much faster.

I came from a 2.2GHz MBP to the i5 and the i5 is anywhere from 30-100% faster than the C2D in CPU intensive tasks.

Unless your old MBP is dying, why not just buy a OWC or Vertex2 SSD, it will be a lot cheaper and you can upgrade in a year or so when Sandy Bridge is out.

Thanks cluthz. Perfect feedback. If this was a personal purchase I would do exactly as you said.

But, this is a company computer upgrade purchase. I get to upgrade every three years and need spend up to $2K in one big chunk.

 

[Philflow]

Are you sure? The "new" MacBook Air NAND Flash is SLOWER than the OWC Sandforce SSD? The OWC SSDs use an older standard SATA interface to connect just like a hard drive, while the new NAND Flash storage is much smaller, hardwired, and uses new drivers to speed up performance. I would expect the new storage to be instantanous like an iPad, unlike traditional SSD drives. Maybe I am wrong. This is a different type of NAND Flash, not an SSD.

Going by the benchmarks, the Sandforce SSDs are significantly faster.
http://arstechnica.com/apple/guides/2010/10/116-macbook-air-ars-answers-your-burning-questions.ars/2

 

[fibrizo]

Are you sure? The "new" MacBook Air NAND Flash is SLOWER than the OWC Sandforce SSD? The OWC SSDs use an older standard SATA interface to connect just like a hard drive, while the new NAND Flash storage is much smaller, hardwired, and uses new drivers to speed up performance. I would expect the new storage to be instantanous like an iPad, unlike traditional SSD drives. Maybe I am wrong. This is a different type of NAND Flash, not an SSD.

Pretty sure you are wrong in this case. The SSD in MBA is still attached to the SATA interface, just a custom layout and connector. (check system profiler) The only difference is a. Form factor and b. Apple's tight integration with hardware design probably allows a faster boot than a standard drive.

 

[Bizuser]

Diminshing return of RAM vs SSD

Neither SSD or 7200rpm or faster disk or more GHz will help, when the swapping begins: the performance flies through the window. RAM is cheaper than replacing spinning disk by SSD, and causes less hassle with he upgrade. Unless your application mix is solely very compute intensive you can measure the RAM impact. First run with 2GB, then 4GB and the same mix with 8GB without any other changes and you will see the difference. If you don't see, and if your benchmark represents your max application mix, then take an old MBA with the max GHz and change in a fast SSD. But you should you see the difference in performance with increasing RAM size. And I would claim, yet not being able to prove it, the gain with a faster disk (rpm/access or SSD) might be relatively smaller with a larger RAM.

---

I've been in the habit of buying the base MBP class model for quite now. The first thing I do is max out the RAM and install a 7200 HDD to give the best price/performance.

Right now the plan is to get a refurbed 15" MBP i5 with base 4 GB and and a 256GB OWC SSD. I'll see how that goes and upgrade to 8 GB if need be.

The only thing I don't understand is the importance of RAM when you have SSD. Do you reach the point of diminishing returns sooner when you have SSD?

 

[barefeats]

Here is a better option on the Apple online store Special Deals section for under $2000:
Refurbished MacBook Pro 2.66GHz Intel Core i7
15.4-inch LED-backlit glossy widescreen display (1440 x 900 pixel)
4GB (2 x 2GB) of 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM
500GB Serial ATA @ 5400 rpm
8x double-layer SuperDrive (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M graphics processor with 512MB of GDDR3 memory

Get that for $1869 with 12 month warranty that can extended to 36 months.

That will blow away the two options you listed even without the SSD. Then you can upgrade it later with an SSD and 8GB of RAM.

 

[miata]

Here is a better option on the Apple online store Special Deals section for under $2000:
Refurbished MacBook Pro 2.66GHz Intel Core i7
15.4-inch LED-backlit glossy widescreen display (1440 x 900 pixel)
4GB (2 x 2GB) of 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM
500GB Serial ATA @ 5400 rpm
8x double-layer SuperDrive (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M graphics processor with 512MB of GDDR3 memory

Get that for $1869 with 12 month warranty that can extended to 36 months.

That will blow away the two options you listed even without the SSD. Then you can upgrade it later with an SSD and 8GB of RAM.

Nice Find Barefeats. Unfortunately, I need to stay close to my $2k, and can't really stagger my equipment purchases. So, I would have to choose between the i5 with SSD for $2099 or the i7 with HDD for $1869. To be honest, I think I would see a much bigger improvement with the SSD than I would the increase i7 CPU performance.

The only area where I would notice the i7 is video photo type stuff and according to Anandtech test that would be 12-15% improvement over the i5. The i5 alone would give me at least a 11-33% improvement over my current system. Of course, the i5 with SSD will knock any disk based benchmarks off the chart.

Of course, the i7 with SSD would be the ultimate solution, but...

 

[WardC]

So it is an SSD? It is the same as an SSD except a different form factor? Not a new type of ultrafast hard-wired NAND Flash immediate access storage?

 

[imawake]

Get a MBP 15" core i5 with OWC SSD

Geez. You can get a MBP core i5 from Mac Connection for $1600. Replace the HDD with an OWC SSD for $100 and there you go, problem solved ya dummy.

By the way:
http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/ba...creen-quality-can-it-finally-replace-the-pro/

Hope this helps somebody.