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1.6 ghz vs. 1.8 ghz
- Thread starter iEric
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My guess is it won't make much of a difference. Major bottleneck with hard disk speed. 5-10% speed increase in applications when boosting by 200Mhz, as seen in barefeats tests. If you consider that worth $300, than maybe you would want it.
Probably right.
I went for the 1.8 myself. But I doubt the performance difference will be that earth-shattering.
For those who do tasks like e-mail, web browsing, word processing, simple spreadsheets, listening to music or watching a movie, there will probably be no difference.
My guess is that the base MBA is a good offering for most folks.
I seriously doubt it, except in benchmarks.
Personally, I would apply that $300 toward the SSD, which will go a long way toward improving the overall speed of this notebook.
Um, when and why would a 2.6ghz CPU run at 1.5ghz?
Personally, I would apply that $300 toward the SSD, which will go a long way toward improving the overall speed of this notebook.
Um, when and why would a 2.6ghz CPU run at 1.5ghz?
there is a app called "core duo tem", you can check how fast your cpu is running
Most Modern OSes (win/OSX/Lin) adopt so called step-speeding technology for laptop to reduce power consumption and prolong the battery life.
oh yes, I should have mentioned that this mostly applies to laptops, especially when on battery power. "Most mac and most of the time" might be a little bit overstated.
$300 is a bit of a steep price for a modest upgrade in processing power. I would doubt that the difference in performance would be very noticeable- if even noticeable at all. Now if the 1.8GHz C2D had extra L2 cache or a faster fsb then the difference would probably be noticeable. 
The MBP is faster, obviously.
And I agree that the $300 would be better spent toward an SSD than the 200 mhz processor upgrade.
And I agree that the $300 would be better spent toward an SSD than the 200 mhz processor upgrade.
Here are some old old benchmarks if you want to get a feel for the difference between the two. It isn't going to be exact as these aren't the same machines and aren't the same exact chips.
I placed an order for the 1.8 ghz and I think I'm going to be cancel and order the 1.6 ghz. I was thinking that it would help in that I might occasionally use Aperture, but for $300 more, I don't think it's really worth it. Besides, I'll be doing the vast majority of photo work on my 2.8 ghz iMac with 4 GB RAM!
smart decision. If you ALREADY have a real fast mac at home... then this macbook air is somethin you should be buying as a "faster" mac. Yuo should be buying it, because it's unbelievably portable, and easy to carry with you everywhere you go.
iPhone did a good job letting you take your files with you everywhere, but now Macbook air is gonna do an EVEN better job, cause it's running full OS X, and has a full keyboard.
Exactly...I also have a 2.16 ghz MacBook Pro that I bought a year ago...at the time, it was my only computer. I caved when the new iMac's came out and got the whole enchilada: 24" screen, 2.8 ghz, 4GB RAM...of course, now the MBP doesn't get used all that much (at least in comparison as I do a lot of photo editing). I mainly use my MBP when I travel or just around the house for general surfing, email, and occasionally I might go in and tweak a photo here and there.
I realize that the MBP is a more powerful machine w/ more features, yadda, yadda...than the MBA, but I really would like a smaller, lighter form factor so, I'm Ebaying my MBP to purchase the MBA. To me, and for my purposes, it's worth it. Now if my laptop was going to be my main machine, I'd definitely keep the MBP-that's just not the case anymore, though.
The C2D should be faster since it has an 800 MHz FSB and a larger cache i think. And technology has improved and chips are running cooler which should also boost performance.