MacBook Air 13. I5 or i7?

[ZBoater]

Exactly. I don't see the point in advocating for someone to get an i7 when they would truly would not benefit from it. Sure if cost is no issue, but for some people it is.

But thats the fallacy that every review and benchmark has proven false. If you see the different benchmarks, even the ones that simulate daily office use (not games or encoding or CAD), you will see an advantage in performance of the i7 over the i5.

It's ok to want to save $150. It's not OK to gloss over the performance difference between two different classes of processor that the manufacturer explicitly designed and built to BE different. If the difference is not worth it to some, that's a whole other conversation. But to deny that the difference exists is silly. Especially when there has been numerous people in this forum expressing their observations of the performance difference only to be told it's all in their heads and its psychological.

Most people would benefit from a faster processor. Is it worth $150 to them? well that depends on their specific financial situation, and has NOTHING to do with the simple inescapable fact that the i7 performs better than the i5. Period. No ifs, ands, buts, or imaginations.

 

[AXs]

What's a fallacy? What fallacy is he applying? Seems legit to me.

Please state specifically what fallacy you think it is so I can explain to you why it isn't true

 

[ItHurtsWhenIP]

What's a fallacy? What fallacy is he applying? Seems legit to me.

Please state specifically what fallacy you think it is so I can explain to you why it isn't true

Vocabulary lessons aside, how would he know whether someone would truly benefit from it or not?

If it performs better than the i5, which is, I assume, why they call it an i7 instead of an i5, wouldn't everybody benefit from it in some way, shape or form?

 

[mr.bee]

But thats the fallacy that every review and benchmark has proven false. If you see the different benchmarks, even the ones that simulate daily office use (not games or encoding or CAD), you will see an advantage in performance of the i7 over the i5.

Yeah, what's the obsession with, "you only notice a slightly difference in CPU intensive tasks."
That kind of oversimplifying is leading to wrong conclusions.

 

[mattferg]

But thats the fallacy that every review and benchmark has proven false. If you see the different benchmarks, even the ones that simulate daily office use (not games or encoding or CAD), you will see an advantage in performance of the i7 over the i5.

It's ok to want to save $150. It's not OK to gloss over the performance difference between two different classes of processor that the manufacturer explicitly designed and built to BE different. If the difference is not worth it to some, that's a whole other conversation. But to deny that the difference exists is silly. Especially when there has been numerous people in this forum expressing their observations of the performance difference only to be told it's all in their heads and its psychological.

Most people would benefit from a faster processor. Is it worth $150 to them? well that depends on their specific financial situation, and has NOTHING to do with the simple inescapable fact that the i7 performs better than the i5. Period. No ifs, ands, buts, or imaginations.

Seriously? Are you still spewing this drivel? Most people would benefit from a faster processor, however in the scenarios they would use their Air in, the i7 is not faster than the i5 especially not for everyday tasks.

Every review of the processors have proved this, and benchmarks?! You mean those things that run the CPU at FULL INTENSITY? You have to be kidding me. Do you even understand how turbo boost works? Until you get to tasks that are 2.8ghz+, the i5 will be just as fast as the i7, FACT. It's not okay to gloss over THIS.

The i5 and the i7 perform identically in everyday scenarios. I've tested this. Period. Now stop whining about how you wasted $150 and stop wasting other people's time and money.

 

[mr.bee]

Seriously? Are you still spewing this drivel? Most people would benefit from a faster processor, however in the scenarios they would use their Air in, the i7 is not faster than the i5 especially not for everyday tasks.

Every review of the processors have proved this, and benchmarks?! You mean those things that run the CPU at FULL INTENSITY? You have to be kidding me. Do you even understand how turbo boost works? Until you get to tasks that are 2.8ghz+, the i5 will be just as fast as the i7, FACT. It's not okay to gloss over THIS.

The i5 and the i7 perform identically in everyday scenarios. I've tested this. Period. Now stop whining about how you wasted $150 and stop wasting other people's time and money.

I've seen test results that do state a difference in everyday scenarios.

The i7 is faster than the i5.

stop being rude

 

[DisplacedMic]

Seriously? Are you still spewing this drivel? Most people would benefit from a faster processor, however in the scenarios they would use their Air in, the i7 is not faster than the i5 especially not for everyday tasks.

Every review of the processors have proved this, and benchmarks?! You mean those things that run the CPU at FULL INTENSITY? You have to be kidding me. Do you even understand how turbo boost works? Until you get to tasks that are 2.8ghz+, the i5 will be just as fast as the i7, FACT. It's not okay to gloss over THIS.

The i5 and the i7 perform identically in everyday scenarios. I've tested this. Period. Now stop whining about how you wasted $150 and stop wasting other people's time and money.

wow - he's just disagreeing with you and you have matched him post for post with your own "drivel"

there is no reason to be nasty about this issue.

here's the anandtech review's conclusion and i think it sums it up pretty well:

Final Words
Simplicity permeates Apple from design and software all the way down to the purchasing experience. The 2013 MacBook Air offers only two choices of CPUs, and honestly for the vast majority of the population, that's all you really need. The default Core i5 1.3GHz (4250U) delivers the best overall battery life regardless of workload. Its performance is often somewhere in between a 2011 and 2012 MacBook Air depending on workload, although in some cases it's possible to see equivalent performance to an upgraded 2012 MBA. If you need more performance however, the 1.7GHz Core i7 upgrade (4650U) delivers. In most situations you get more than a 20% increase in performance, bringing the platform up to somewhere in between last year's 1.7GHz Core i5 and 2.0GHz Core i7 options. Once again, with the right workload you could even see performance as much as 20% better than a 2GHz Core i7 from last year. Although I didn't publish any results here, GPU performance seemed roughly unchanged compared to the Core i5 option.

so you're both right in the sense that yes, the i5 would be great for most people but the i7 would still give you a 20% boost "in most situations"
so what's the problem? why do you care how other people spend their money?

can we please stop with the personal attacks and threadjacking over minutia?

you post your i5 8gig 256 "sweet-spot" post in every thread asking "i don't know how to use the search feature so what air should i buy?" just like he posts his defense of the i7.

 

[lamboman]

I've had a good search around and haven't really found anything conclusive, so I might as well ask here. How have you guys found battery life with the i7 for VMs? Performance on both the i5 and the i7 should be fine, and battery life under light loads should be the same, however my concern with the i7 is that battery life will be considerably shorter than the i5 when running a Windows 7/8 64-bit VM. The i7 may be quicker, but this will be useless to me if the battery life is notably reduced (eg. from 6 to 5 hours or so). Issue with a VM is that it is a mix between a light-medium load, and a medium-heavy load...I haven't really found any test results which cover this type of scenario. Anybody who has had both an i5 and i7 machine that could offer their input?

The i7 would probably be the preferred option for those rare times where I need to run two VMs and plug the machine in, but for a single VM some input would be appreciated. Thanks all

 

[TType85]

I've had a good search around and haven't really found anything conclusive, so I might as well ask here. How have you guys found battery life with the i7 for VMs? Performance on both the i5 and the i7 should be fine, and battery life under light loads should be the same, however my concern with the i7 is that battery life will be considerably shorter than the i5 when running a Windows 7/8 64-bit VM. The i7 may be quicker, but this will be useless to me if the battery life is notably reduced (eg. from 6 to 5 hours or so). Issue with a VM is that it is a mix between a light-medium load, and a medium-heavy load...I haven't really found any test results which cover this type of scenario. Anybody who has had both an i5 and i7 machine that could offer their input?

The i7 would probably be the preferred option for those rare times where I need to run two VMs and plug the machine in, but for a single VM some input would be appreciated. Thanks all

I had the 13" i5/8/256 Air for a few days and my windows VM ran fine through parallels. I was running Visual Studio and SQL Server along with office and a few other programs and it ran smoothly.

I did return the i5 though as I would rather spend the few extra $ on the i7 as I am going to use it to replace my desktop.

One thing no one seemed to have linked here is the actual difference in the processors.

http://ark.intel.com/compare/75114,75028

Not only is there the 400mhz speed bump but the i7 has 1MB more onboard cache should help a small bit in overall performance. The HD5000 graphics also have a small 100mhz bump.

My opinion:
The i5 is a great machine that is plenty fast for most people. I wouldn't hesitate to get one for my wife or recommend one for my boss. Would you really notice an extra minute exporting your home video through iMovie or a few seconds loading a picture? Most people don't push their machines hard and what makes the most difference to them speed wise is the SSD.

If you are a fringe case; using VM software, doing heavy audio, video or photo editing the i7 is a nice bump in power for not a ton of money. I would not order one without the 8GB ram though.

 

[lamboman]

I had the 13" i5/8/256 Air for a few days and my windows VM ran fine through parallels. I was running Visual Studio and SQL Server along with office and a few other programs and it ran smoothly.

I did return the i5 though as I would rather spend the few extra $ on the i7 as I am going to use it to replace my desktop.

One thing no one seemed to have linked here is the actual difference in the processors.

http://ark.intel.com/compare/75114,75028

Not only is there the 400mhz speed bump but the i7 has 1MB more onboard cache should help a small bit in overall performance. The HD5000 graphics also have a small 100mhz bump.

My opinion:
The i5 is a great machine that is plenty fast for most people. I wouldn't hesitate to get one for my wife or recommend one for my boss. Would you really notice an extra minute exporting your home video through iMovie or a few seconds loading a picture? Most people don't push their machines hard and what makes the most difference to them speed wise is the SSD.

If you are a fringe case; using VM software, doing heavy audio, video or photo editing the i7 is a nice bump in power for not a ton of money. I would not order one without the 8GB ram though.

Thanks for the reply Yeah, as I said the i5 will be fast enough, just that if I can get a bit more performance I might as well, for those rare occasions where I may take advantage of it. Going 8GB and 256GB SSD, as with my previous MBP. I'm clued up but would rather gather some experiences from others before ordering! How have you found battery life with VMs compared to your previous i5? Thanks

 

[Saturn1217]

Thanks for the reply Yeah, as I said the i5 will be fast enough, just that if I can get a bit more performance I might as well, for those rare occasions where I may take advantage of it. How have you found battery life with VMs compared to your previous i5? Thanks

I think it depends on what you are doing in the VM. For me personally using virtualbox (the least optimized VM you can use) but only doing light things (excel + macros) in that vm didn't have a major impact on battery. I'm actually still on my first charge. I unplugged around midnight on August 20th and this is my work computer so I've been using it off and on that entire time...So yeah I'd say battery life is ok.

I have the 2013 13" i7 btw.

 

[TType85]

Thanks for the reply Yeah, as I said the i5 will be fast enough, just that if I can get a bit more performance I might as well, for those rare occasions where I may take advantage of it. Going 8GB and 256GB SSD, as with my previous MBP. I'm clued up but would rather gather some experiences from others before ordering! How have you found battery life with VMs compared to your previous i5? Thanks

I don't have the i7 yet, it should be here Monday. I didn't time how long the battery lasted but with the i5 running parallels and lightly using the vm (Coding in VS, outlook open) and using Safari on the mac side I probably used it for 7-8 hours and it wasn't near dead at that time.

 

[mattferg]

I've seen test results that do state a difference in everyday scenarios.

The i7 is faster than the i5 in high CPU intensive tasks

stop being rude

Fixed this for you

----------

wow - he's just disagreeing with you and you have matched him post for post with your own "drivel"

there is no reason to be nasty about this issue.

here's the anandtech review's conclusion and i think it sums it up pretty well:



so you're both right in the sense that yes, the i5 would be great for most people but the i7 would still give you a 20% boost "in most situations"
so what's the problem? why do you care how other people spend their money?

can we please stop with the personal attacks and threadjacking over minutia?

you post your i5 8gig 256 "sweet-spot" post in every thread asking "i don't know how to use the search feature so what air should i buy?" just like he posts his defense of the i7.

Yes, and if you understand how Intel processors work and benchmarks too (which run at full CPU utilisation or else they'd make no sense), you'll know that with turboboost, anything the i7 can do the i5 can too, up to 2.6ghz+. This means that in everyday scenarios that are not CPU intensive, the i5 will be just as fast as the i7 because it can turboboost up to whatever the i7 is running at to get the task done. Please research "turbo-boost" before you post further, you're showing your ignorance here.

The 20% speed increase comes from the extra clockspeed at the high end. As such, if the CPU isn't running at the high end, you don't get this performance.

Yes, however his defence of the i7 is because he bought it. I don't own the i5/8/256, as such my opinion is not personal.

 

[lamboman]

I think it depends on what you are doing in the VM. For me personally using virtualbox (the least optimized VM you can use) but only doing light things (excel + macros) in that vm didn't have a major impact on battery. I'm actually still on my first charge. I unplugged around midnight on August 20th and this is my work computer so I've been using it off and on that entire time...So yeah I'd say battery life is ok.

I have the 2013 13" i7 btw.

I don't have the i7 yet, it should be here Monday. I didn't time how long the battery lasted but with the i5 running parallels and lightly using the vm (Coding in VS, outlook open) and using Safari on the mac side I probably used it for 7-8 hours and it wasn't near dead at that time.

Thanks for the replies guys Going to be using VirtualBox, possibly Parallels in the future if need be (so that I can boot from a Boot Camp installation). Mostly going to be coding for learning purposes, so nothing particularly CPU intensive, mainly just typing (hence the 8GB of memory).

Not trying to spark this debate off again, however I went in store earlier and tried various i5 MBAs, all felt a little sluggish across the board compared to my old Early 2011 MBP (with a Crucial m4 128GB) and even the 13" MBP and rMBP. Probably down to the lower base clock speed. The i5 certainly won't be lacking for intensive tasks, however the sluggishness was frustrating. Unfortunately there weren't any i7s on display to play with. I've seen that quite a few who have played with/had both have noted that the i7 is noticeably quicker for basic tasks. Pretty much set on the i7 now, however would those of you who have owned both say that this holds true?

 

[mattferg]

Thanks for the replies guys Going to be using VirtualBox, possibly Parallels in the future if need be (so that I can boot from a Boot Camp installation). Mostly going to be coding for learning purposes, so nothing particularly CPU intensive, mainly just typing (hence the 8GB of memory).

Not trying to spark this debate off again, however I went in store earlier and tried various i5 MBAs, all felt a little sluggish across the board compared to my old Early 2011 MBP (with a Crucial m4 128GB) and even the 13" MBP and rMBP. Probably down to the lower base clock speed. The i5 certainly won't be lacking for intensive tasks, however the sluggishness was frustrating. Unfortunately there weren't any i7s on display to play with. I've seen that quite a few who have played with/had both have noted that the i7 is noticeably quicker for basic tasks. Pretty much set on the i7 now, however would those of you who have owned both say that this holds true?

I'd say the main appeal of the Air over the base 2011 Pro would be the SSD, as such if you've got an SSD now the main benefit of the Air is the battery, not the performance I've used both for long periods of time and only noticed i7 benefits in editing and high intensity CPU tasks. There were no benefits whatsoever to everyday tasks or gaming.

Don't be confused by the lower base clock speed - if the laptop was running sluggishly the processor would boost itself to run faster.

In the same way the MacBook Air i7 can turboboost to run as fast as the rMBP in some cases, the i5 can turboboost to run as fast as the i7 can in some circumstances.

 

[Mike in Kansas]

Yes, and if you understand how Intel processors work and benchmarks too (which run at full CPU utilisation or else they'd make no sense), you'll know that with turboboost, anything the i7 can do the i5 can too, up to 2.8ghz+.

I think you meant to say "up to 2.6GHz in single core, 2.3GHz in dual core". The i5 doesn't go to 2.8GHz in turbo mode in single core applications.

 

[mattferg]

I think you meant to say "up to 2.6GHz in single core, 2.3GHz in dual core". The i5 doesn't go to 2.8GHz in turbo mode in single core applications.

I corrected myself already to say 2.6ghz in the post, if you check above. My point still remains

 

[Mike in Kansas]

I corrected myself already to say 2.6ghz in the post, if you check above. My point still remains

NP. Nothing wrong with being pedantic every once in a while...

 

[lamboman]

I'd say the main appeal of the Air over the base 2011 Pro would be the SSD, as such if you've got an SSD now the main benefit of the Air is the battery, not the performance I've used both for long periods of time and only noticed i7 benefits in editing and high intensity CPU tasks. There were no benefits whatsoever to everyday tasks or gaming.

Don't be confused by the lower base clock speed - if the laptop was running sluggishly the processor would boost itself to run faster.

Performance-wise my 13" MBP (Sandy Bridge i5, 2.3GHz) is pretty much on par with the new i5 MBA, hence why I'm not too concerned about the performance of either option. Just one of those things where money isn't a concern, and for the rare occasion where I want to run two VMs (which will likely happen), the i7 will fair a tad better (the old MBP was a bit sluggish there at times).

I've read and read about different reports regarding battery life. The i7 has the same/slightly better battery life at lighter loads, while the i5 is better off as the workload increases. Problem here is that my use of a VM wouldn't fall strictly in any particular category: low-medium during normal use (basic coding as described), where I'd pause the VM if I stopped using it; and medium-high usage when pushing a bit more (at which point I'd probably have the machine plugged in). At the same time, it's unlikely that I'd be using the machine under such workloads for long - after that I'd go back to a light workload. It's a case of finding a balance.

My other perspective is that the i7 will have far greater battery life than my old MBP, and that my previous estimates were overblown and the MBP lasted all day for me...that will likely be the case here!

My gut feeling here is that for my usage, the i7 would be more suitable. Similar/slightly worse battery life when using the VM for a light-medium load (pausing the VM will close the gap between the i5 and i7), and slightly better battery life during the normal light load (which will be far more regular). Biggest thing here is that the VM will be a constant load unless paused, which would equate to slightly more battery usage on the i7. However, having actual input for experiences as opposed to guessing is always best.

Thanks for the reply mattferg. I know you're going to recommend the i5...I've read plenty of your debates over the past couple of months with ZBoater over the matter

 

[SchodMC]

Thanks for the replies guys Going to be using VirtualBox, possibly Parallels in the future if need be (so that I can boot from a Boot Camp installation). Mostly going to be coding for learning purposes, so nothing particularly CPU intensive, mainly just typing (hence the 8GB of memory).

Not trying to spark this debate off again, however I went in store earlier and tried various i5 MBAs, all felt a little sluggish across the board compared to my old Early 2011 MBP (with a Crucial m4 128GB) and even the 13" MBP and rMBP. Probably down to the lower base clock speed. The i5 certainly won't be lacking for intensive tasks, however the sluggishness was frustrating. Unfortunately there weren't any i7s on display to play with. I've seen that quite a few who have played with/had both have noted that the i7 is noticeably quicker for basic tasks. Pretty much set on the i7 now, however would those of you who have owned both say that this holds true?

I came from the early 2011 13" i5 MBP (with 8GB RAM and Kingston (Intel) 160GB SSD). At first: there will be a speed improvement because of the faster SSD, the faster GPU and the faster RAM the MBA provides. So going for the MBA will be a step forward.

About the CPU I think, the i5 in the current MBA will be a little bit faster then the i5 in the early 2011 MBP. In daly tasks, I think you won't realize the difference. Coming from the MBP, you have to decide whether you want a system that has a nearly the same CPU Power as your MBP or want to pay some $$$ more to get a CPU upgrade that will be noticeable when you use CPU intensive tasks.

What ever CPU you will choose - you will get a speed upgrade with the current MBA, because the speed of a computer is always determined by every component, not just the processor. (A personal note: the i7 is a fine CPU. )

cu
SchodMC

 

[w00d]

If anyone is interested in seeing the actual speed of their CPU and how it changes while you are using the computer, Intel has this nice little utility for OSX:

http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-power-gadget-20

 

[lamboman]

I came from the early 2011 13" i5 MBP (with 8GB RAM and Kingston (Intel) 160GB SSD). At first: there will be a speed improvement because of the faster SSD, the faster GPU and the faster RAM the MBA provides. So going for the MBA will be a step forward.

About the CPU I think, the i5 in the current MBA will be a little bit faster then the i5 in the early 2011 MBP. In daly tasks, I think you won't realize the difference. Coming from the MBP, you have to decide whether you want a system that has a nearly the same CPU Power as your MBP or want to pay some $$$ more to get a CPU upgrade that will be noticeable when you use CPU intensive tasks.

What ever CPU you will choose - you will get a speed upgrade with the current MBA, because the speed of a computer is always determined by every component, not just the processor. (A personal note: the i7 is a fine CPU. )

cu
SchodMC

It'll all add up to a negligible difference. The i7 will at least give me a bit of a boost. Performance isn't the concern here. Battery life is really the only thing. Both machines will offer "enough", and I have my iMac if I'm dealing with something that requires more power. If the i7's battery life using a VM as described before won't be a huge amount shorter than the i5, that's the one I'd go for, purely because I'm keeping the machine for around four years, and a little extra, useful performance will always be a plus Any further input would be appreciated, thanks

 

[mattferg]

Performance-wise my 13" MBP (Sandy Bridge i5, 2.3GHz) is pretty much on par with the new i5 MBA, hence why I'm not too concerned about the performance of either option. Just one of those things where money isn't a concern, and for the rare occasion where I want to run two VMs (which will likely happen), the i7 will fair a tad better (the old MBP was a bit sluggish there at times).

I've read and read about different reports regarding battery life. The i7 has the same/slightly better battery life at lighter loads, while the i5 is better off as the workload increases. Problem here is that my use of a VM wouldn't fall strictly in any particular category: low-medium during normal use (basic coding as described), where I'd pause the VM if I stopped using it; and medium-high usage when pushing a bit more (at which point I'd probably have the machine plugged in). At the same time, it's unlikely that I'd be using the machine under such workloads for long - after that I'd go back to a light workload. It's a case of finding a balance.

My other perspective is that the i7 will have far greater battery life than my old MBP, and that my previous estimates were overblown and the MBP lasted all day for me...that will likely be the case here!

My gut feeling here is that for my usage, the i7 would be more suitable. Similar/slightly worse battery life when using the VM for a light-medium load (pausing the VM will close the gap between the i5 and i7), and slightly better battery life during the normal light load (which will be far more regular). Biggest thing here is that the VM will be a constant load unless paused, which would equate to slightly more battery usage on the i7. However, having actual input for experiences as opposed to guessing is always best.

Thanks for the reply mattferg. I know you're going to recommend the i5...I've read plenty of your debates over the past couple of months with ZBoater over the matter

Nope, not at all. I'd say as long as you've gone at least for the 256GB SSD (preferably 512) and have upgraded the RAM, for you personally the i7 is a good choice (if what you are going to be doing is running two VMs alongside OS X). Since the MBA is core-limited compared to it's siblings the extra MHz would come in handy

But yeah what you do isn't day-to-day stuff, so my arguments don't really target it For you the i7 is a good choice, as long as you've upgraded the SSD and RAM already As long as it isn't breaking the bank go for the upgrade, as you'll actually use the performance (unlike some).

Unlike Zboater this isn't personal/I have no stake in this. For me personally, I could afford the i7 but didn't need it, so didn't get it. I don't have to tell everone else to buy an i5 IN EVERY SCENARIO just to make me feel better. If you are going to use it for high intensity CPU stuff I say go for it Everyday stuff and gaming, no, it isn't going to be used.

As for battery life, they're on par and pretty much matched until you get to the high end stuff (where the i7 goes faster and uses more power relative to the performance boost).

The trend in the industry seems to be that other factors will be the limiting ones which mean that users replace their MacBooks. It'll probably be SSD size/screen quality/battery life that users want more of, as these seem to be what's improving most atm. Either that or people would've just broken their Airs xD

But yeah, ZBoater likes to paint the picture that I just think the i7 isn't any faster. I know that it's faster IN THE HIGH END, meaning that only users who run high end high intensity CPU tasks will ever see the benefit. He, of course, never argues against or replies to this point...

 

[ezekielrage_99]

Seriously? Are you still spewing this drivel? Most people would benefit from a faster processor, however in the scenarios they would use their Air in, the i7 is not faster than the i5 especially not for everyday tasks.

Every review of the processors have proved this, and benchmarks?! You mean those things that run the CPU at FULL INTENSITY? You have to be kidding me. Do you even understand how turbo boost works? Until you get to tasks that are 2.8ghz+, the i5 will be just as fast as the i7, FACT. It's not okay to gloss over THIS.

The i5 and the i7 perform identically in everyday scenarios. I've tested this. Period. Now stop whining about how you wasted $150 and stop wasting other people's time and money.

An i7 is faster than and i5, your argument is spurious, rude and puerile.

You may not notice the difference in performance for the basic tasks but it's there, what you've suggested is nothing more than specious reasoning.

You may not even use the extra grunt but there is a difference is performance even for every day tasks, I's reference this this, and this.

You may not notice extra performance however it is there, I have both an i5 for home and i7 for work the i7 is faster though I do get far less battery life. Photoshop is faster, Openoffice is faster to load, anything mildly related to video is faster and game performance is faster on the i7 it is slightly noticeable when you have a few applications open, under load the i7 shines in this department.

Battery life, I get far more life from the i5 around the 1-2 hours mark depending on usage and how I've opitmised the battery (graphics card performance-wise).

I've run both models through Geekbench mark from my home i5 I'm getting 6075 while from the work i7 8698, thus the i7 is a much faster processor.

To make it fair both machines have 8GB RAM and 256GB HDD.

For reference sake and entry level Macbook Air i5/8GBRAM/256GB HDD would be more than enough for most users, is the i7 a waste? Well it depends on both budget and and how long you're intending on keeping the laptop for and if battery life vs performance is more important.

Personally if the budget permits and want to get 3.5+ years out of it then the i7 +8GBRAM would be a better option, though with that said the i5 is still a very snappy build and will last.

 

[ZBoater]

...I know that it's faster IN THE HIGH END, meaning that only users who run high end high intensity CPU tasks will ever see the benefit. He, of course, never argues against or replies to this point...

I've already linked to the Openoffice benchmarks, the ones that simulate EVERY DAY USE, not HIGH END, that prove the i7 is faster even on those. You've already read multiple posts of people relaying their experiences which you have dismissed as "in their heads" and "psychological". So yes, I have argued and replied but you just insist on clinging to an obviously proven false point.

This is not personal, at least not for me. Your point is that for every day usage, the i5 is just as fast as the i7. My point is that no, it isn't. Benchmarks and personal experience prove that it isn't. You insist that because you cant see it, it must be in my head. So be it.