Nah, I think I've figured it out. It's basically to do with processor performance as compared to some version of the Powerbook I think. Or something like that. Anyways, it looks like the MBA is hella slow, but for my needs it should do just fine.
Hella slow?
So a MBAir with a 1.6GHz C2D, 2GB RAM, and a tiny 80GB 4200 HDD gets a Geekbench score of 2000ish. My MBP with a 2.4GHz C2D, double the RAM, and a HDD that's twice as large and spinning at 7200RPM gets just shy of 3100. So a computer that's clocked 50% faster with twice the RAM and twice the HDD size and significantly improved drive speed would score about 50% better. Wow, i'm soooooo surprised.
Technically, a score of 1000 is the same as a 1.6GHz PowerMac G5, though their performance chart shows it scores a 967, not 1000, since the chart is an average of the scores for a particular model.
So a 3 pound 0.16"-0.76" thick MacBook Air with a 4200RPM 1.8" 80GB miniature drive is over twice as powerful as a 44.4 pound, 20"x8"x19" enormous tower.
Sure, hella slow.
Also, if you compare it against the latest Mac Pro, the 8 core 3.2GHz Harpertown Mac Pro scores around 9600 on the 64-bit benchmarks. the primate labs blog doesn't specify if they ran 32 or 64 bit benchmarks on the MBAir. Let's assume for argument's sake that they were 64. In that case, a 3.2GHz 8 core Mac Pro with a FRONTSIDE BUS speed equivalent to the clock speed of the slower MBAir, FB-DIMM RAM, and so on is approximately 4.5 times faster.
I'd say that for a 3lb ultraportable, being about 22% as fast as the fastest mac EVER, with 8 server grade cores clocked at twice the speed is not being a slouch.
Let's see where it compares against other machines in the mac performance chart. Remember this chart is based on an average of all the systems they have data on for that model:
-just shy of twice as high a score as a 2.1GHz iMac G5
-2.18x higher than the fastest PowerBook G4
-1.36x higher than a dual 1.8 GHz PowerMac G5
-1.26x higher than a Dual 2.0GHz PowerMac G5
- higher than the dual 2.3GHz and dual core 2.3GHz PowerMac G5s
- higher than the dual 2.5GHz PowerMac G5
- within a hair of the dual 2.7GHz PowerMac G5.
Not so shabby, is it?