2010 15" Macbook Pro vs Latest 13" MacBook Air

[amirite]

I have a 2.4ghz 15" Macbook Pro with 4GB of RAM bought in early 2011.

My main uses are Photoshop, audio production, and coding.

Will I see a performance increase/decrease if I were to replace it with the latest 256GB 13" MB air?

 

[Steve121178]

Increase.

/Thread

 

[KeegM480]

I have a 2.4ghz 15" Macbook Pro with 4GB of RAM bought in early 2011.

My main uses are Photoshop, audio production, and coding.

Will I see a performance increase/decrease if I were to replace it with the latest 256GB 13" MB air?

Big, big increase. You should be very happy with that upgrade. Boot times, opening apps, shutting down, graphics quality, everything should be better and you can buy a cheap DVD drive, I actually took mine out because it is a waste of space.

 

[Eithanius]

I would love to see if there's ay increase on the same set of software from a mid-2010 MBP 15" 2.6GHz i7 with 8GB RAM and 240GB SSD to a 13" MBA 1.7GHz i7 with 8GB RAM and 512GB SSD.

It's easier to see the performance increase from a HDD to a SSD, but a SSD to a SSD…

Should I say it's a safe bet my mid-2010 MBP still trash the current MBAs…?

The only plus point I see on MBA is battery life…

 

[yangchewren]

I would love to see if there's ay increase on the same set of software from a mid-2010 MBP 15" 2.6GHz i7 with 8GB RAM and 240GB SSD to a 13" MBA 1.7GHz i7 with 8GB RAM and 512GB SSD.

It's easier to see the performance increase from a HDD to a SSD, but a SSD to a SSD…

Should I say it's a safe bet my mid-2010 MBP still trash the current MBAs…?

The only plus point I see on MBA is battery life…

Processor:

Your CPU:
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i7+M+620+@+2.67GHz&id=849

CPU in the 2013 MBA:
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i7-4650U+@+1.70GHz&id=1955

These are synthetic benchmarks however. Benchmarking method favours processors that can turboboost to higher frequencies as it does not take into account periods of longer usage where there is throttling of the processor. Hence there is still a possibility that your old MBP provides more consistent performance over a longer period.

However, should there be a short task, the MBA would be faster than your MBP.

GPU:

People will tell you that your 330m in your laptop is weaker than a HD 4000 (and hence HD 5000), I would advise you to take such suggestions with a pinch of salt. Your 330m would subjectively give a smoother performance (lesser throttling) as compared to a HD 4k. It'll still be weaker than a HD 5k though. Driver optimizations would also come into play.

Your MBP has 85W of power to play around with, it is likely not to power-throttle unlike even the most current macbook airs.

SSD:
The PCIE SSDs on the new MBA have proven to be very fast.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7085/the-2013-macbook-air-review-13inch/8

The max speed on a Sata III interface cannot even reach the sequential write speed on the MBA's SSDs.

Display:

The MBP display is superior in every aspect aside from pixel density.

 

[Eithanius]

Processor:

Your CPU:
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i7+M+620+@+2.67GHz&id=849

CPU in the 2013 MBA:
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i7-4650U+@+1.70GHz&id=1955

These are synthetic benchmarks however. Benchmarking method favours processors that can turboboost to higher frequencies as it does not take into account periods of longer usage where there is throttling of the processor. Hence there is still a possibility that your old MBP provides more consistent performance over a longer period.

However, should there be a short task, the MBA would be faster than your MBP.

GPU:

People will tell you that your 330m in your laptop is weaker than a HD 4000 (and hence HD 5000), I would advise you to take such suggestions with a pinch of salt. Your 330m would subjectively give a smoother performance (lesser throttling) as compared to a HD 4k. It'll still be weaker than a HD 5k though. Driver optimizations would also come into play.

Your MBP has 85W of power to play around with, it is likely not to power-throttle unlike even the most current macbook airs.

SSD:
The PCIE SSDs on the new MBA have proven to be very fast.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7085/the-2013-macbook-air-review-13inch/8

The max speed on a Sata III interface cannot even reach the sequential write speed on the MBA's SSDs.

Display:

The MBP display is superior in every aspect aside from pixel density.

Thanks for the info… My MBP had been used for some light Aperture editing, though I can see it gobbles up 8GB RAM easily at times. Occasionally some CD and DVD ripping and conversion via iTunes or Handbrake.

I've even opened and edited multiple Excel spreadsheets that at times even 8GB is not enough, and I don't even know how I get there, memory leaks perhaps…

Not a gamer, but I do use my nVidia GPU for BOINC. Going an MBA route means no more BOINC for me…

Looks like I might source a used 2012 cMBP then...