Ever since I got my base model Macbook Air 2013 I've been Impressed with it's performance especially for a entry level product. I'm a photographer and I use a Full Loaded PC for all my work. I looked on-line to find performance tests, benchmarks, or real world tests on how a MAC running OSX performs against a PC running the same task. I was thinking to possibly make a switch in the future to a Mac for my photography. I didn't find anything so I decided to do it myself. Since I have Access to multiple computers I felt I can give myself and people a great and simple comparison. The Program used is Photomatix Pro 4.2.7 version. Three 18 Megapixel Canon Raw files were processed and merged into a HDR. The same exact settings were used on all the computers. The results are timed in seconds it took for the computers to process the images into a single HDR file ready for editing. All tests were run twice. All PC's were running Windows 7 with Crucial M4's and the i7 is using a Samsung 840 PRO.
Macbook Book Air 2013 Base Model : 41s
Intel T9500 /4GB (2.5GHz Core 2 Duo w/ 6MB cache) : 1 min 44s
Intel i3 2100 /4GB (3.3GHz) : 60s
Intel i5 2320 /4GB (3.0GHz Quad Core) : 32s
Intel i7 2700K /16GB (3.5GHz Quad Cord w/HT) 35s
The results speak for themselves and are really impressive for the Macbook Air. I'm extremely pleased as to how well it did in the test. Mac OSX seems to be extremely effecient squeezing out the most out of the Macbook's base line hardware. For those of you who are wondering why the i5 is faster than the i7, the reason is the SSD. The i5 has a Crucial M4 and the i7 has a Samsung 840 PRO. Despite what silly benchmarks say, the real world performance of the M4 is actually better in some cases than the Samsung. I'm confident the PCIe SSD in the Macbook Air also helped a lot with the numbers. (I'm glad my SSD came with the Marvell Controller rather than the Samsung) I suspect a Fully Loaded Macbook Air should get around 38-39s or so. I can only imagine what a High End iMac or Macbook Pro can get. I hope this helps people who are looking for a Macbook Air as their main computer or those who want to use it for editing and wanted a comparison with various PCs.
Macbook Book Air 2013 Base Model : 41s
Intel T9500 /4GB (2.5GHz Core 2 Duo w/ 6MB cache) : 1 min 44s
Intel i3 2100 /4GB (3.3GHz) : 60s
Intel i5 2320 /4GB (3.0GHz Quad Core) : 32s
Intel i7 2700K /16GB (3.5GHz Quad Cord w/HT) 35s
The results speak for themselves and are really impressive for the Macbook Air. I'm extremely pleased as to how well it did in the test. Mac OSX seems to be extremely effecient squeezing out the most out of the Macbook's base line hardware. For those of you who are wondering why the i5 is faster than the i7, the reason is the SSD. The i5 has a Crucial M4 and the i7 has a Samsung 840 PRO. Despite what silly benchmarks say, the real world performance of the M4 is actually better in some cases than the Samsung. I'm confident the PCIe SSD in the Macbook Air also helped a lot with the numbers. (I'm glad my SSD came with the Marvell Controller rather than the Samsung) I suspect a Fully Loaded Macbook Air should get around 38-39s or so. I can only imagine what a High End iMac or Macbook Pro can get. I hope this helps people who are looking for a Macbook Air as their main computer or those who want to use it for editing and wanted a comparison with various PCs.
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