Hello, how likely will the upcoming MacBook Air perform similarly to the current 15" rMBP?
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How likely will the new MacBook Air perform similarly to rMBP?
- Thread starter peterpan123
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Thats pretty vague... I can promise it will hands down underperform compared to the 15" quad core with a dedicated GPU 
That's a very vague question, for what type of tasks? For simple emailing, web browsing, and so on they'll perform the same as the current generations and the last two generations for both Airs and Pros.
It depends on what you're using it for. Air will not have the same power as Pro for sure since you're dealing with much lower heat tolerance in the smaller case design. Nothing will ever change this, that's just the laws of physics.
If anything, the new Air will have similar performance of the current Air or less depending on the resolution of the rumored retina screen.
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The MBA will not surpass the power of the current rMBP by a long shot. It will be a smaller form factor than the current MBA, and if it benchmarks anywhere near 50% the performance of the rMBP in any test other than SSD speed, I would be surprised. It is a consumer computer, and the lack of a dGPU and quad-core processor mean even the 2018 MBA will maybe be able compete with the 2013 rMBP for professional graphics or processing work. This next iteration won't even be close.
We deploy 11/13" Airs and 13/15" Retina Pros to users at work. I can say, with good authority, that of course the RPros are faster, however, it depends on what you're doing.
Browsing web pages, mail, smaller Excel spreadsheets, outlook and word docs... They're all going to feel pretty darn similar.
Start throwing any kind of video encoding into the mix, or compiling/rendering, and the Pro surges ahead. If you're an average user, and it's closer to a consumption device than a creation device, any of the macs will be fine- but if you plan on creating big files and stuff, go for the best you can comfortably afford.
OK. How about comparing with the shared graphics card?
Also, will they be faster than the current top of the line 13" MB Air?
It's the same limitation as mentioned in previous posts, you're dealing with heat and cooling limitations, thinner and smaller MBAs will never ever match the performance of Pros, period.
As for 13" MBA, nobody knows. You're asking too much for a product that has not been announced. There's a very good chance the rumored 12" MBA is not coming this year and we're just going to get a speed bump of the current 11"/13" MBAs. In that case, you can expect a slight bump in performance.
If 12" MBA with retina screen is coming with a radical new design that's thinner, the question is which CPU they'll include. If they're going with Core M, expect it to be slightly slower but not that dramatic for the basic tasks. For more intensive tasks, it'll be much slower than the current MBAs. You can expect a regression in performance because the Retina screen will require more GPU resources and the thinner design means a lower thermal limit compared to the current design, which generally means less performance.
Maybe it will not be as good as my Samsung Galaxy Note PRO 12.2. At least I can make phone calls using it.
