is the core 2 duo the bottleneck for MBA?

[mutsaers-vr.nl]

Not an honest way to compare CPU's since the MBA only has 2GB RAM as opposed to 4GB Ram for the MBP !!!!

I was in the same dilema... this video helped me decide...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qp720fEnuRs

I know the MBA is outstanding in form and lightness, but the MBP is not that thick.. and the speed, backlit keyboard and thunderstorm helps!

 

[iRun26.2]

Yup. You just called it a "thunderstorm" port.

But the MBA is still one 'hail' of a computer!

 

[topmounter]

Having come from a 15" MBP... the 13" MBA is a revelation. I don't think I could go back to the piggy MBP now.

 

[paleriderc2d]

If the MBA had a backlit keyboard, I would have grabbed it immediately. I find myself in low lighting a lot when sitting at my computer. Having a Panasonic Toughbook with a backlit keyboard for work made me extremely spoiled.

The optical drive on my MBP sits unused 99% of the time. I use it to install software but Apple App Store is a signal that Apple is heading toward direct download for software purchases.

 

[Santabean2000]

My main worry is about the lifespan of the SSD. Are SSDs really getting slower over time? And as far as I have understood it, it is almost impossible to replace the MBA SSD? A slow processor combined with a unreplaceable SSD makes the lifespan of a MBA considerable shorter than a MBP or even MB. And also very difficult to sell after some years when wanting to upgrade? Or am I completely wrong?

Lion will support TRIM

 

[fyrefly]

Apple also focused on software and attacked on all fronts the limitations of today's computers. The Nvidia 320m blows away the Intel IGP especially in the voltage of Core i-processors. Apple has absolutely made the MBA to take advantage of the better ways to make faster Macs...

<snip!>

It was a sad day when Apple stuck its 13" MBP users with Intel's IGP, and I wish more people understood or cared about that.

Would todays MacBooks be better if Nvidia could still make an IGP for the Core-i Chipsets? Probably.

But the HD 3000 Graphics are only 5-10% less powerful (at least in the current 13"/15" MBPs) than the 320M.

Anandtech did testing and the HD 3000 chip beat the 320m in gaming tests (in both Windows and OSX)

I do agree with you that Intel's lawsuit against Nvidia to drive them out of hte chipset business was total BS, but the HD 3000 is the best Intel IGP they've ever put out. In fact, Nvidia is now licensing Intel some of their technology/patents, so the Intel IGPs are only gonna get better, as they bake more and more Nvidia DNA into them.

I'm on the verge to press the buy button on a MBAir 11" and ... I'm unsure about one thing.
OCCASIONALLY we use Handbrake to convert some movies in AppleTV 2 format and stream them to the TV, or the AirVideo app which do live transcoding (for iPhone and iPad, soon to AppleTV via Airplay).
Now we use an early alumiunium MacBook to do that (about 1 hour to convert a movie using Handbrake ATV2 preset, no problem with AirVideo app, C2D 2,2 Ghz), but we want to get rid of that.
Will we be able to do that?...I mean...how much longer will we have to wait to convert 1 movie?

The current 11" MBA is not gonna convert the handbrake stuff as fast as the 2.26Ghz 13" MPB (I'm assuming that's what you already have - as there was no 2.2Ghz Aluminum MacBook. Just 2.0 and 2.4Ghz).

Barefeats.com did tests with a 2.4Ghz 13" MBP and a 1.4Ghz 11" MBA in Handbrake:

As you can see the 11" MBA was 40% slower than the MBA.

I have an ultimate Air and finally got round to processing some photos last night and it was a breeze. It out performs my work laptop which has a faster C2D chip in everything I've tried.

For what you need it for, get the Air. Once you've used one you'll never want to go back to a heavier machine again. I'm consistently blow away by how light this machine is, even 3 months later. It's handled everything I've thrown at it and not skipped a beat. Admittedly I do all my gaming on consoles so that might skew my opinion slightly.

Size and weight have always been the MBA's strengths. That's why I've owned one since Apple released the first one in early '08.

I'm surprised that the photo processing was faster on the MBA, but the Ultimate 2.13Ghz SU9600 isn't that much slower than whatever MBP processor you have. Problem is that at least one poster here is talking about the 11" MBA (and presumably the 1.4Ghz one). Not exactly a speed demon. Plus, the MBA you were using had the advantage of SSD for the disk-access based parts of the photo processing (which I assume explains how the MBA was "faster" at it).

Not an honest way to compare CPU's since the MBA only has 2GB RAM as opposed to 4GB Ram for the MBP !!!!

I dunno about that. You can get 4GB RAM Airs. I have one. And the guy in the video does say they have the same congifuration...?

Regardless, it's the most "apples-to-apples" (pardon the pun ) comparison I've seen. An SSD equipped i5 MBP will kill a C2D equipped MBA. Of course it will.

 

[fibrizo]

Would todays MacBooks be better if Nvidia could still make an IGP for the Core-i Chipsets? Probably.

But the HD 3000 Graphics are only 5-10% less powerful (at least in the current 13"/15" MBPs) than the 320M.

Anandtech did testing and the HD 3000 chip beat the 320m in gaming tests (in both Windows and OSX)

Did you read the entire article? CPU bound stuff is going to rock on the sandy bridge stuff, but still the HD 3000 is significantly worse when the problem is GPU bound vs CPU bound...

Here's the rest of the benchmarks from the very same article. About 20% worse in settings > that absolute lowest possible. Obviously the CPU is going to kick the pants off the C2D so the cpu bound comparison isn't very good, but by apple not including a discrete option like the 15 inchers really turned me off from upgrading from the 2010 mbp... ended up getting an ipad 2 instead of upgrading.

Here's Anand's quote on the subject.

"Given the huge leap in CPU performance, I'd have been okay if the graphics stayed on par with the previous MBP 13, but I was a little disappointed to see it that much slower. This is a weird one, since the same GPU gave us significantly better performance in the SNB test system. The only explanation we have has to do with turbo. The max turbo supported by the HD 3000 in the Core i5 2415M is 1.2GHz, down from 1.3GHz in the 2820QM. Now max clock speed isn't enough to explain this performance difference, but perhaps under Windows the 2415M's GPU doesn't turbo up quite as aggressively as the 2820QM's.

Anand consistently saw 10-15% faster results during the first run of a benchmark than the next four or five runs of the same test. This is probably due to thermal limitations—heat soak and overheating are pretty time-honored MBP traditions. However, my system shouldn't have been affected by thermal stress over time—I let it sit for some time between each benchmark run to let it cool, just to eliminate residual heat as a factor.

Based on CPU-Z, Apple isn't underclocking the GPU—it's running at the same 1.2GHz that's on the Intel spec sheets. The difference in performance is a little odd. The MacBook Pro, especially in 13-inch form, does have the potential to be thermally limited due to the size of the enclosure, but I'm not sure why a supposedly low-power graphics solution would be so thermally limited, even when testing to avoid the effects of heat build up as much as possible."



Now with that in mind, I certainly wouldn't mind the sandybridge update on the mba 11 and 13, from my current C2D version, since I don't game much, but given the heat problems of this model I'm a little concerned.

 

[alan111]

i just posted in another thread. Alot of people underestimate the c2d, but yes, I would say that its the bottleneck of the air.

 

[Scottsdale]

Would todays MacBooks be better if Nvidia could still make an IGP for the Core-i Chipsets? Probably.

But the HD 3000 Graphics are only 5-10% less powerful (at least in the current 13"/15" MBPs) than the 320M.

Anandtech did testing and the HD 3000 chip beat the 320m in gaming tests (in both Windows and OSX)

I do agree with you that Intel's lawsuit against Nvidia to drive them out of hte chipset business was total BS, but the HD 3000 is the best Intel IGP they've ever put out. In fact, Nvidia is now licensing Intel some of their technology/patents, so the Intel IGPs are only gonna get better, as they bake more and more Nvidia DNA into them.



The current 11" MBA is not gonna convert the handbrake stuff as fast as the 2.26Ghz 13" MPB (I'm assuming that's what you already have - as there was no 2.2Ghz Aluminum MacBook. Just 2.0 and 2.4Ghz).

Barefeats.com did tests with a 2.4Ghz 13" MBP and a 1.4Ghz 11" MBA in Handbrake:

As you can see the 11" MBA was 40% slower than the MBA.



Size and weight have always been the MBA's strengths. That's why I've owned one since Apple released the first one in early '08.

I'm surprised that the photo processing was faster on the MBA, but the Ultimate 2.13Ghz SU9600 isn't that much slower than whatever MBP processor you have. Problem is that at least one poster here is talking about the 11" MBA (and presumably the 1.4Ghz one). Not exactly a speed demon. Plus, the MBA you were using had the advantage of SSD for the disk-access based parts of the photo processing (which I assume explains how the MBA was "faster" at it).



I dunno about that. You can get 4GB RAM Airs. I have one. And the guy in the video does say they have the same congifuration...?

Regardless, it's the most "apples-to-apples" (pardon the pun ) comparison I've seen. An SSD equipped i5 MBP will kill a C2D equipped MBA. Of course it will.

I can find a "chart" or "proof" of anything I want on the Internet, but that doesn't make it TRUE. Be realistic, and conservatively you should say the worst numbers of the HD3000 instead of the best. Realistically time will prove exactly what I am saying, and I don't need a chart to prove it.

In addition, we have seen Intel's IGP with low voltage CPUs in the MBA before, and it was NOT pretty. It was Apple's worst Mac at the time since the Intel transition. Drivers improved over time, but in the day it was worthless and undeveloped in OS X just as it is today. It needs time, but even then it's considerably behind the 320m.

Seriously, I am using real world experience from my own experience and reading experiences of others. I have zero faith that the current Intel IGP can compete with the 320m. There are many reasons why, but I don't need to show charts as I know it's true. If you want to believe Intel is even competitive vs Nvidia when it comes to graphics that's your loss.

I really think the SB IGP couldn't provide the resolution of the current 13" MBA in a low voltage CPU and perform even 55% of the Nvidia 320m... and for this reason I don't believe Apple will use it. The MBA is a beast that is incredibly capable, and Apple isn't going to ruin the users' experience to appease to Intel or the fewer than 5% of the consumers who require an Intel Core i-series in the MBA to buy it.

 

[brentsg]

Apple isn't going to ruin the users' experience to appease to Intel or the fewer than 5% of the consumers who require an Intel Core i-series in the MBA to buy it.

Hahahahaha...

I know the MBA is great for some functions. I'm close to buying one as well, but there's no way that I can given the C2D. More power to the "95%" that can.

The fact that you think 95% of users are content with C2D speaks volumes to your credibility. I realize that there are a lot of people who only see a computer from the exterior and know nothing beyond... but I honestly don't believe there is enough ignorance to make it 95%.

 

[fyrefly]

Did you read the entire article? CPU bound stuff is going to rock on the sandy bridge stuff, but still the HD 3000 is significantly worse when the problem is GPU bound vs CPU bound...

Here's the rest of the benchmarks from the very same article. About 20% worse in settings > that absolute lowest possible. Obviously the CPU is going to kick the pants off the C2D so the cpu bound comparison isn't very good, but by apple not including a discrete option like the 15 inchers really turned me off from upgrading from the 2010 mbp... ended up getting an ipad 2 instead of upgrading.

<snip!>

Did you read the entire of the article? Those 20% less benchmarks you posted were for Windows 7 Gaming. This is a MAC.

Even later in the article, Ananad comes to this conclusion:

With the 13-inch MacBook Pro, under OS X at least, there simply aren't any downsides. You get much better CPU performance over the previous generation. In fact, the new 13 can outperform last year's 15 thanks to Sandy Bridge. The new 13 is quite possibly the best balance of portability and performance. It's the single largest upgrade you'll find in the lineup. If you own a previous generation 13-inch MBP, the upgrade is 100% worth it. Graphics performance is solid under OS X however questionable under Windows. For some reason we actually saw a step back in GPU performance vs. last year's 13-inch MBP when running games in Windows 7.

Now with that in mind, I certainly wouldn't mind the sandybridge update on the mba 11 and 13, from my current C2D version, since I don't game much, but given the heat problems of this model I'm a little concerned.

The heat problems are only 'cause the 13" went from the P8800 at 25W+320M to the i5/i7 chips at 35Watts. 10W more power draw is gonna create more heat, and need more cooling.

I can find a "chart" or "proof" of anything I want on the Internet, but that doesn't make it TRUE. Be realistic, and conservatively you should say the worst numbers of the HD3000 instead of the best. Realistically time will prove exactly what I am saying, and I don't need a chart to prove it.

Whew. All I can say to that is:

In addition, we have seen Intel's IGP with low voltage CPUs in the MBA before, and it was NOT pretty. It was Apple's worst Mac at the time since the Intel transition.

The X3100 in the first MacBook Air wasn't awesome, I know. I owned one too. But the HD 3000 graphics are what, 4-5 generations ahead of the X3100?

Besides, as I've said before, neither you nor I know what the LV versions of the HD 3000 are gonna be like. And I'm not saying they're be better than the 320m. They will probably be worse. How much worse is yet to be seen.

I really think the SB IGP couldn't provide the resolution of the current 13" MBA in a low voltage CPU and perform even 55% of the Nvidia 320m... and for this reason I don't believe Apple will use it. The MBA is a beast that is incredibly capable, and Apple isn't going to ruin the users' experience to appease to Intel or the fewer than 5% of the consumers who require an Intel Core i-series in the MBA to buy it.

First of all... 1440x900 can't be pushed by the HD 3000? Seriously? At one point in the Macbook Pro's history, 1920x1200 was being pushed by the 9400m on 17" MBPs. (Sure they had the option to turn on the 9600 instead, but the 9400m was having a grand old time pushing 1920x1200 all the day long.

And given that the fully clocked HD 3000 handily beat the 9400m, which was 1/2 as fast as the 320m (don't worry, I won't bore you with the facts, erm, charts to prove it ), I suspect the lower clocked HD 3000 will rest somewhere between the 9400m and the 320m. Still well and able to push 1440x900.

Unless you mean as a 60fps gaming resolution, but the 320m can't even hit above 30-40, so hopefully that's not what you mean.

Either way, neither of us knows till we see some benchmarks on the lower-clocked HD 3000's.

Also... here's a thought. Even if Apple releases i7LV MacBook Airs sometime in the summer, there's nothing that stops you from continuing to use your 320m machine if it performs graphical tasks better for you. You don't have to stop using your 320m Air if an i7LV+HD 3000 graphics comes out.

 

[Scottsdale]

Hahahahaha...

I know the MBA is great for some functions. I'm close to buying one as well, but there's no way that I can given the C2D. More power to the "95%" that can.

The fact that you think 95% of users are content with C2D speaks volumes to your credibility. I realize that there are a lot of people who only see a computer from the exterior and know nothing beyond... but I honestly don't believe there is enough ignorance to make it 95%.

And your tone speaks volumes of your character and doesn't do much for your karma either.