MBA 13" as the only laptop?

[JR1993]

the latest gen 13" MBP's have to GPU's though rt? the HD 3000 and the AMD Radeon. Can't the MBP just use the AMD Radeon for graphics hardware acceleration? is it automatic or can you manually override to either one?

MBP 13" has intel hd3000 only.

MBP 15" has intel hd3000, and AMD Radeon 6940M/6750M depending on model

MBP 17" has intel hd3000 and AMD Radeon 6750M

It can be either automatic or you can force one or the other through a 3rd party app

 

[KnightWRX]

No, you aren't using GPGPU technology...

Hum, if you're writing OpenCL code, yes you are, no matter where it gets executed. OpenCL is a software interface to GPGPU. It just gets emulated in software on Sandy Bridge processors with Intel IGPs.

Why the anger ? Did I piss you off by pointing out the lack of proper a proper OpenCL implementation on the Intel 3000 HD ? If so, I'm sorry you're taking all of this personally.

And yes, I do appreciate the hardware acceleration of the 320M on my MBA. I play some games, and as far as all benchmarks are concerned, the 320M is much better than 10% over the Intel 3000 HD.

 

[Sean Dempsey]

I don't think there's any way that you could have a Macbook Air as your only laptop.

I'd suggest getting the Air, but also getting a Macbook Pro, that way you can have a backup laptop for the things that the Air can't do.

 

[KnightWRX]

I don't think there's any way that you could have a Macbook Air as your only laptop.

That's your problem, you don't think before you post. At least read the thread next time.

I'd suggest getting the Air, but also getting a Macbook Pro, that way you can have a backup laptop for the things that the Air can't do.

Why suggest 2 laptops ?

 

[Ach111es]

I don't think there's any way that you could have a Macbook Air as your only laptop.

I'd suggest getting the Air, but also getting a Macbook Pro, that way you can have a backup laptop for the things that the Air can't do.

...why get a MBP when you could spend the same on a solid iMac with more power and an enormous screen. And there is always a way.

There really isn't anything the MBA "cannot do." It might be a bit slower at some tasks, but it is capable of everything that a MBP is capable of. It can run VM's, CS5, etc.-I know people have stated that before.

It cannot natively play DVDs, it needs an external.

I'm currently using a vostro 1510 from 3 years ago. 2.1 Core 2 Duo, 4 GB ram, 250 7200RPM, and a really mediocre GFX card. It can do anything too (besides run OSX flawlessly).

But if it crashed, you are absolutely correct-one would be without a functioning laptop. In that way the MBP or any other Mac would be a good backup.

 

[philxor]

I use my MBA (13.3, 4GB RAM) as my only laptop for both work and home. I have Parallels running about 90% of the time, use Office apps, Photoshop CS5, etc. with no problems. I use a pair of external monitors with it at work. I don't play a lot of games on it but I do watch Netflix and other streaming content on it with no issues.

 

[KnightWRX]

But if it crashed, you are absolutely correct-one would be without a functioning laptop. In that way the MBP or any other Mac would be a good backup.

But that's not a MBA issue, that's an issue with any computer. If it breaks beyond what you can fix, you're stuck without a computer until it gets repaired or replaced.

Personally, I find getting a second computer just for that possibility to be quite an expensive insurance policy. When it snows, we'll shovel is what I always say.

For now, I'm quite happy with the Air as my only computer. Been using it exclusively for close to 8 months now, it does everything (not that there was ever any doubt in my mind it would).

 

[thefirstone]

Hum, if you're writing OpenCL code, yes you are, no matter where it gets executed. OpenCL is a software interface to GPGPU. It just gets emulated in software on Sandy Bridge processors with Intel IGPs.

Why the anger ? Did I piss you off by pointing out the lack of proper a proper OpenCL implementation on the Intel 3000 HD ? If so, I'm sorry you're taking all of this personally.

And yes, I do appreciate the hardware acceleration of the 320M on my MBA. I play some games, and as far as all benchmarks are concerned, the 320M is much better than 10% over the Intel 3000 HD.

Looks like the MBA with hardware acceleration does the job of decoding 1080 AVC content. Of course, these damn processors are fast enough that you don't even need hardware acceleration but you do get better battery life.

It seems to me that the new MBA with the SB processor will roughly have the same decode capability for H.264 1080 content as the current MBA with dedicated GPU.

 

[FX4568]

OpenCL is available on SB, but only on the CPU (unless of course you have an OpenCL dedicated GPU available, which the 13" MBP does not). In other words, you're using GPGPU technology to offload the CPU and then running it on the CPU. Not much offloading going on.

So again, the MBP 13" with the Intel graphics is a much less capable machine in many areas that require hardware acceleration than the current MBA.

Hum, if you're writing OpenCL code, yes you are, no matter where it gets executed. OpenCL is a software interface to GPGPU. It just gets emulated in software on Sandy Bridge processors with Intel IGPs.

Why the anger ? Did I piss you off by pointing out the lack of proper a proper OpenCL implementation on the Intel 3000 HD ? If so, I'm sorry you're taking all of this personally.

And yes, I do appreciate the hardware acceleration of the 320M on my MBA. I play some games, and as far as all benchmarks are concerned, the 320M is much better than 10% over the Intel 3000 HD.

CPU based OpenCL is not as effective than the GPU based OpenCL since it does not possess as many cores in a GPU. A gpu has millions of cores, while CPU has only few.
OpenCL is not a software interface to the GPGPU, OpenCL is barely an "advancement" to the only GPGPU capabilities that it has before the launch.

I have no idea why I would be angry in the first place since I have the 2010 MBA anyways, nor do I plan to buy the 2011 one... I think you are the one taking it personally, im just try to point out the things that you have wrong.

When you say Intel 3000HD do you mean standard voltage? because if its a standard voltage, you have it wrong. LVs and ULVs are the ones that fall apart vs a 320m, and that is what Apple will be using for the new MBAs. either LV or ULV.

 

[Sean Dempsey]

That's your problem, you don't think before you post. At least read the thread next time.



Why suggest 2 laptops ?

The title clearly asks 'MBA 13" as the only laptop?"

And I answered. May you should think before you look foolish LOL!

 

[iZeeshan]

Yep pretty much settled on the new 13" MBA.

Just waiting for damn Apple to announce/release it! I'm going to Canada on a bus next week and I guess I'll be going with out a PC. Blows.

 

[KnightWRX]

The title clearly asks 'MBA 13" as the only laptop?"

And I answered. May you should think before you look foolish LOL!

Maybe you should have read the thread where I and many others pointed out we use the MBA as our only laptop. And it works fine.

Really, the only thing I got out of your post is that you didn't read the thread and that you aren't very creative at all in your thought process. While you might not think it is possible, it is quite possible.

You didn't "think" things through with your post obviously, because otherwise, you would have decided to read the thread before answering and upon reading the thread, you would have found that your baseless opinion was probably not worth sharing.

And a MBA and MBP ? What a useless waste of money you suggested.

 

[h00ligan]

No, my assertion does not vary. It was specific to hardware H.264 decoding on OS X. There's nothing you can do to enable support for it until Apple does in the Video Decode Acceleration framework.

Right, so again, the assertion varies on what one does. My post was to clarify that the assertion of the machine being less ideal than the last varied based on what one does, to clarify for those who may have believed it will (and we have no idea until it is released) be a downgrade across the board.

For encoding or decoding of h264, the air is not the right machine, last generation or this, compared to other offerings.there are however many things at which I is quite good.

 

[KnightWRX]

Right, so again, the assertion varies on what one does. My post was to clarify that the assertion of the machine being less ideal than the last varied based on what one does

But my assertion was specific to hardware H.264 decoding so no, again, the assertion does not vary, no matter how much you want it to.

You were wrong, accept it and move on.

 

[thefirstone]

But my assertion was specific to hardware H.264 decoding so no, again, the assertion does not vary, no matter how much you want it to.

You were wrong, accept it and move on.

What hardware acceleration does MBA have H264? By the way, H264 1080p60 can be decoded even with something as low as a 500Mhz processor with hardware acceleration.

I really doubt there is any H264-specific hardware acceleration in MBA.

 

[KnightWRX]

What hardware acceleration does MBA have H264? By the way, H264 1080p60 can be decoded even with something as low as a 500Mhz processor with hardware acceleration.

I really doubt there is any H264-specific hardware acceleration in MBA.

You can doubt it all you want, but the nVidia 320M supports hardware decoding of H.264 in every OS X API that permits such a thing.

Now, I check the technote every week and it seems they finally updated the documentation and the framework itself :

http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#technotes/tn2267/_index.html

The Video Decode Acceleration framework is a C programming interface providing low-level access to the H.264 decoding capabilities of compatible GPUs such as the NVIDIA GeForce 9400M, GeForce 320M, GeForce GT 330M, ATI HD Radeon GFX, Intel HD Graphics and others. It is intended for use by advanced developers who specifically need hardware accelerated decode of video frames.

There's no indication of when this update occurred, but seeing how this text wasn't there with 10.6.7 and is now here after 10.6.8, this is something that's new in the last update.

We'll never know since Apple didn't update the 10.6.3 text, which is the initial introduction of this API which only supported the nVidia stuff back then.

This is good news, it's one less problem with the GPU downgrade in Sandy Bridge at least.

 

[ess5]

Yep pretty much settled on the new 13" MBA.

Just waiting for damn Apple to announce/release it!

Awesome, you're not alone =)

Regardless of theories concerning unreleased hardware, I'm fairy certain the new MBA should cover any of your (and my) basic computing needs...while looking dead sexy

Suggesting that you purchase *two* laptops, or definitively claiming older hardware is significantly superior to the refreshed hardware seems a bit irresponsible, especially when it's obvious that you're not looking to do anything outlandish with the machine.

My only suggestion (unless you've already done so) would still be to double-check the weight/size of the current MBP, to see if it would also count as a significant weight reduction vs. your previous Windows machine...the benefits of upgradability (sp?) (both RAM and HDD) are pretty significant, so I'd just take that into account.

Have Fun!

 

[h00ligan]

But my assertion was specific to hardware H.264 decoding so no, again, the assertion does not vary, no matter how much you want it to.

You were wrong, accept it and move on.

Your assertion was specific to one task. My post was a clarification that the new MBA may not be inferior at that (we don't know) and certainly isn't likely to be inferior at anything else.

Why are you being so confrontational and rude?

I'd you want to be technically correct, one can't make factual assertions about an unreleased unknown product period. Grow up man.

 

[LeakedDave]

I bet $3000 that the MacBook Air can run Civ V flawlessly.

Never listen to anyone that says a MacBook Air can't be your only computer. ****, you probably don't even need to max it out. This thing flies. People say tons of crap about the core 2 duo but it does everything I've thrown at it and has never stuttered once. Runs WoW, beat Portal on this, Quake 4, Doom 3, etc. I'm sure Crysis and the like run just fine as well. Definitely not maxed out but playable.

Throw in the 27" LED display and this thing is hot.

And Photoshop is perfect on the Air, and streaming video is flawless. The Air is fully capable of doing everything the MBP does. The only way I'd upgraded to the next gen Air is if I could get a 512 SSD and a backlit keyboard with a maxed out i7.

Making the Air my only PC was the best decision I've made. But to be honest I mostly use an iPad 2 for browsing the web, email, msn messenger, etc. I only use my Air for programming and PC games and Photoshop. The Air is my truck and the iPad 2 is my car . Although I do all of my music on the iPad now.

 

[iZeeshan]

I bet $3000 that the MacBook Air can run Civ V flawlessly.

Never listen to anyone that says a MacBook Air can't be your only computer. ****, you probably don't even need to max it out. This thing flies. People say tons of crap about the core 2 duo but it does everything I've thrown at it and has never stuttered once. Runs WoW, beat Portal on this, Quake 4, Doom 3, etc. I'm sure Crysis and the like run just fine as well. Definitely not maxed out but playable.

Throw in the 27" LED display and this thing is hot.

And Photoshop is perfect on the Air, and streaming video is flawless. The Air is fully capable of doing everything the MBP does. The only way I'd upgraded to the next gen Air is if I could get a 512 SSD and a backlit keyboard with a maxed out i7.

Making the Air my only PC was the best decision I've made. But to be honest I mostly use an iPad 2 for browsing the web, email, msn messenger, etc. I only use my Air for programming and PC games and Photoshop. The Air is my truck and the iPad 2 is my car . Although I do all of my music on the iPad now.

Now that's a convincing testimony. Makes me even more excited about getting my new Air. Now if only they'll announce it lol

 

[h00ligan]

Bear in mind people's ideas of acceptable are different. I do not find photoshop to run acceptably on a MacBook air at present. I would not buy one for that task. Of course handling is one thing, but a 4 year old laptop runs photoshop actions as fast or faster than the air.

 

[hockey89]

i thought i would ask the same question here as well (hope that is ok)

what i do is:

a lot of excel, a lot of word and powerpoint, browsing internet, listening to music, and playing football manager

will the base 13 MBA be ok? what about the higher end 11 MBA?

 

[PorterRocks]

i thought i would ask the same question here as well (hope that is ok)

what i do is:

a lot of excel, a lot of word and powerpoint, browsing internet, listening to music, and playing football manager

will the base 13 MBA be ok? what about the higher end 11 MBA?

I think those tasks will be just fine on the MBA. As far as a high-end 11" or base 13", the only difference is the screen size (obviously) and the CPU. 1.4GHz vs. 1.86 GHz. Personally, I'd go for the 13". Bigger screen and faster CPU for $100 more.

However, with the refresh coming the differences and price may change. We just don't know yet.

 

[denilol]

i thought i would ask the same question here as well (hope that is ok)

what i do is:

a lot of excel, a lot of word and powerpoint, browsing internet, listening to music, and playing football manager

will the base 13 MBA be ok? what about the higher end 11 MBA?

i'd say go for the base 13 but think hard about upgrading the ram to 4 GB. It will future proof a bit, especially since its not user upgradable at a later date.

 

[Roman2K~]

Now, I check the technote every week and it seems they finally updated the documentation and the framework itself :

http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#technotes/tn2267/_index.html

Good catch, thanks!

OS X v10.6.8 finally brought video hardware acceleration to the HD 3000 and the Radeons, nice!

This is good news, it's one less problem with the GPU downgrade in Sandy Bridge at least.

Indeed.

EDIT: I forgot to mention earlier, that VLC v1.2 (and / or its OS X-specific variant Lunettes) will likely bring hardware acceleration to the OS X version. See this thread / post.) Even more exciting!