MBA and Toshiba Z935 with same CPU/RAM vs older iMac - Geekbench
My personal computer is a 2009 27inch iMac 2.66Ghz four core i5 with 8GB memory with the OS on a (3G SATA II) 240GB SSD in the superdrive spot. I really love this machine and the Mountain Lion OS, but it doesn't fit in my suitcase when I need to travel...
I've been wondering how a new MBA 13 with the 27" Thunderbolt display would compare, although the thought of spending nearly $3k just for portability is not particularly enticing.
Additionally this year my company updated my development laptop to an 8 pound giant so I built a 2.5lb. BYOD Windows 7 equivalent with a Toshiba Z935-P300. The natural question was how does this Windows 7 ultrabook compare with a new MBA. Since it has the exact same processor and memory as the MBA (Core i5-3317U 4GB 1600MHz DDR3) the comparison should be fair.
I bought Geekbench to have a cross platform 32bit and 64bit benchmark. Since I don't have a new MBA, I looked for the best Geekbench 32 and 64bit scores for the MBA with the same processor and memory as the Toshiba in the Geekbench browser. Sure enough someone posted 32bit and 64bit results.
Code:
MBA 5,1 11" 2012 4GB Toshiba Z935-P300 4GB
Intel Core i5-3317U at 1.7GHz Intel Core i5-3317U at 1.7GHz
OS X 10.8.2 Win7 sp1
32-bit 64-bit 32-bit 64-bit
Overall: 5725 6209 5480 7292
Integer: 4125 4843 4784 5248
Floats : 7459 8217 5443 9652
Memory : 5466 5403 6040 6955
Stream : 5781 5578 6920 6864
The 64bit Toshiba is 17% higher than the 64bit test on the MBA, while the 32 bit MBA test is 4% better than the Toshiba. I don't know what it means for running apps, but the greatly different 64bit result on the same processor/memory is a surprise.
As far as the MBA replacing my four year old iMac, its Geekbench is:
Code:
Late 2009 27inch 2.66GHz Core i5-750
8GB 1067 memory OS X 10.8.2 Mountain Lion
32-bit 64-bit
Overall: 6474 7698
Integer: 5094 6525
Floats : 10103 11257
Memory : 3610 4745
Stream : 4332 5256
The iMac 64bit test is 24% better, and the iMac 32bit test is 13% better than the MBA with the 1.7 processor. The 2.0GHz 8GB MBA gets 7660 64bit and 7019 32bit, so is equal to my iMac on the 64bit test, and 8% faster than my iMac on the 32bit test.
So for raw computing, the new 2.0GHz MBA can replace my 2.66GHz iMac, but since my iMac has an ATI Radeon HD 4850 512 MB graphics, I'm not sure how the MBA's Intel 4000 graphics chip would hold up. I do know that my iMac cannot keep up with 1080p60 AVCHD, but Adobe Premiere Elements 11 does a great job of building content for my HDTV even though the iMac cannot play the result cleanly. I have the feeling the MBA would run APE11 just as well.
I had a 15" retina MBPro at work for a while and it felt similar to the 8lb Lenovo, albeit it was a little lighter and "way cool". Having a 3 lb MBA for travel and hooking it to a giant 27" display at home seems like the best compromise for my personal computing needs, and I can tolerate the 13.3" screen in my 2.5 lb work computer more than my shoulders can tolerate the 8 lb Lenovo.
(Lest anyone ask why I bought the Toshiba for a work computer vs. running VMWare/Win7 on a MBA, there is this matter of cost. I didn't want to mix work and personal on the same machine, and a MBA with VMWare and Win7 license came out to twice the price of the Toshiba with Win7 from the start. Also, it seems from the Geekbench scores the Toshiba probably runs Win7 faster than the MBA/VMware or even dual booting would have been, and I would have less SSD space with two operating systems on one machine. The Toshiba seems like a great Win7 platform and with hard wire Ethernet jack, it doesn't need a dongle for fast networking either.)