Macbook Air Sandybridge

[kevink82]

Is this the article u read?
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3871/the-sandy-bridge-preview-three-wins-in-a-row/13

If yes from wut i can tell it state at the end "Clock for clock however, Sandy Bridge seems to offer a 10% increase in performance"

But hey its ur money spend it however u c fit, no one can tell wut the low voltage chip is gonna perform since its not out. In my experience though u will be disappointed if u expect it to be a lot faster since mobile laptops will be slow compare to a desktop no matter how.

 

[Hellhammer]

Is this the article u read?
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3871/the-sandy-bridge-preview-three-wins-in-a-row/13

If yes from wut i can tell it state at the end "Clock for clock however, Sandy Bridge seems to offer a 10% increase in performance"

But hey its ur money spend it however u c fit, no one can tell wut the low voltage chip is gonna perform since its not out. In my experience though u will be disappointed if u expect it to be a lot faster since mobile laptops will be slow compare to a desktop no matter how.

You should have read the next two sentences as well:

"Keep in mind that this analysis was done without a functional turbo mode, so the shipping Sandy Bridge CPUs should be even quicker. I'd estimate you can add another 3 - 7% to these numbers for the final chips. "

Even ULV chips should get a very nasty Turbo which would easily boost it to around 3GHz.

 

[kevink82]

i c the bold word estimate = guess = we r not sure? have to wait for the real deal.

 

[KnightWRX]

You should have read the next two sentences as well:

"Keep in mind that this analysis was done without a functional turbo mode, so the shipping Sandy Bridge CPUs should be even quicker. I'd estimate you can add another 3 - 7% to these numbers for the final chips. "

Even ULV chips should get a very nasty Turbo which would easily boost it to around 3GHz.

Turbo mode leaves you with essentially only 1 core though. It's not a free performance boost. It gives your single threaded apps a boost at the cost of everything else on the system. Multi-threaded apps that take advantage of more than 1 CPU core don't get much boost out of it.

Turbo mode is not magic.

 

[Hellhammer]

Turbo mode leaves you with essentially only 1 core though. It's not a free performance boost. It gives your single threaded apps a boost at the cost of everything else on the system. Multi-threaded apps that take advantage of more than 1 CPU core don't get much boost out of it.

Turbo mode is not magic.

Nope. LM chips have 4/6 Turbo (4 multipliers with 2 cores, 6 multipliers with 1 core) so e.g. Core i7-660LM goes up to 2.8GHz with two cores and up to 3.06GHz with one core. UM chips have even more aggressive Turbo, 5/8 so e.g. Core i7-680UM goes up to 2.13GHz with two cores and 2.53GHz with one core.

Of course that's the maximum Turbo and the system has to be cooled well to achieve that but it's far more than just one core Turbo and definitely A LOT better than the C2Ds with no Turbo at all.

 

[KnightWRX]

Nope. LM chips have 4/6 Turbo (4 multipliers with 2 cores, 6 multipliers with 1 core) so e.g. Core i7-660LM goes up to 2.8GHz with two cores and up to 3.06GHz with one core. UM chips have even more aggressive Turbo, 5/8 so e.g. Core i7-680UM goes up to 2.13GHz with two cores and 2.53GHz with one core.

Nope yet you say the same thing I did ? The point is, look at people quoting the numbers for the M11X : "Turbo mode goes to 1.8 ghz! It's really not a 1.3 ghz chip!", completely ignoring that 1.8 ghz is a 1 core affair. Sure there's an intermediate step in there where there's still 2 cores active, but that will hardly give you the performance boost of 17% quoted on Anandtech.

The fact is, Core iX and Core 2 Duo aren't a 50-70% difference in processing capability and until Apple finds a way to give us something better than an Intel IGP, it doesn't matter since a fast processor is hardly what is holding back most people these days. The GPU has become as important if not more than the actuall processor.

 

[Hellhammer]

Nope yet you say the same thing I did ? The point is, look at people quoting the numbers for the M11X : "Turbo mode goes to 1.8 ghz! It's really not a 1.3 ghz chip!", completely ignoring that 1.8 ghz is a 1 core affair. Sure there's an intermediate step in there where there's still 2 cores active, but that will hardly give you the performance boost of 17% quoted on Anandtech.

Sorry, I missed this part:

Multi-threaded apps that take advantage of more than 1 CPU core don't get much boost out of it.

10% came from clock for clock (according to Anand's tests) and his estimation was that Turbo will yield ~3-7% on top of that. So no, Turbo won't give you 17% but more like 5%.

The fact is, Core iX and Core 2 Duo aren't a 50-70% difference in processing capability and until Apple finds a way to give us something better than an Intel IGP, it doesn't matter since a fast processor is hardly what is holding back most people these days. The GPU has become as important if not more than the actuall processor.

I didn't say they are. It's possible that they are. According to GeekBench scores, 15" MBP with 2.66GHz i7 is 43.2% faster than MBP with 3.06GHz C2D and 62.7% faster than 2.66GHz C2D. So, in clock for clock, iX is pretty impressive plus due to the smaller nm used in SB, the clock speeds are higher as well. Very theoretical numbers of course, in real world the difference will likely be smaller and even negligible in basic usage.

Good point about the IGP though. Even though SB's IGP will be better, it's not going to deliver us what 320M currently does. That's why I have my doubts with SB as AMD could deliver enormous graphics and still a decent CPU (assuming there is Llano with suitable TDP, Zacate is inferior).

But you're right, most people couldn't care less about the CPU, especially in the MBA. I just like playing with the theoretical numbers C2D was not an issue for me at all because the other things makes it a wonderful machine. Those who seek for CPU performance shouldn't look at MBA.