2011 MBA vs 2013 rMBP? Improvement?

[mrmors]

Hi, I've currently got a 2011 MBA 1.7ghz i5, 256GB, 4gb of memory, and the memory is now killing me. I run Parallels VM's and I could really do with running 2 at a time, not 1, and each one with 2-3gb of memory really, I run 1 with 2gb at the moment and it gets maxed out.

So I thought about getting a 13" rMBP, I know the new ones are due but that doesn't bother me as it'll mainly be a battery life upgrade jobby.

But performance and the extra memory is what I need.

I've just tried to look for geekbench scores for my MBA vs the new'ish rMBP so I can get a rough guide if it's a big boost, apart from the screen as my MBA is 2yrs old.

The score for my MBA looks around 5800-5900?:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1191811/


Then the scores for the new 13" i5 rMBP look around 6800?:

http://www.primatelabs.com/blog/2013/02/retina-macbook-pro-benchmarks/


So that only a 15% upgrade really?

I thought that a move from a 2yr old standard MBA to a MBP would be much more of a significant jump. I know the 15" i7's do scores around 12k, and I know geekbench isn't the be all of performance guides, but it's giving me a rough idea.


Are those scores not a real interpretation of the actual performance difference between the two or is it spot on?


Not sure I want to drop $2200-$2600 on one for an extra 15%? I wish I could just upgrade the memory on the MBA

 

[robvas]

So that only a 15% upgrade really?

I thought that a move from a 2yr old standard MBA to a MBP would be much more of a significant jump.

Remember the 2013 isn't really much of a CPU performance jump from the 2012 - it's more about the PCI-E disk and the longer battery life (and upgraded graphics). In some things the 2012's are faster. And the 2012 is 15-20% faster than the 2011, so it's not a huge jump to the 2013.

Here are some benchmarks to look at that have the 13" Air and Retina as well as the 2011 models

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7085/the-2013-macbook-air-review-13inch/3