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2012 MBAs: Battery and heat difference between Ivy Bridge i5 and i7
- Thread starter Jobsian
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I'm surprised with how few reports there are, maybe people aren't seeing enough of a difference to comment?
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It seems clearer why Engadget was still 'awaiting' the 2.3GHz rMBP battery test - they are getting a solid 8 hours on it! And they replicated it as they thought it was an anomaly. However The Verge only got 5 hours on the lower clocked rMBP so it's still in the air (lol) until Anandtech's rigorous benchmarks come through.
I am running the 2012 i7 11" Air and notice that it does run a decent amount hotter then my 2011 i5 11". That being said, battery life seems identical if not better and I have yet to hear the fan get to an audible level.
Hot hot HOT!
I'm returning my brand new 13", 8gb ram, 512gb ssd i7 2012 Macbook Air. While the cpu is doing close to nothing, the fan runs at 3200-3400rpm. If I launch Safari and surf a few pages, it revs up to 6500rpm. Temp ranges from 180F to 215F. Doing, I repeat, nothing but web surfing.
And if I quit all non-system processes, it takes forever for the fan to spin down unless I put the machine to sleep and wake it.
The Apple store has no i7s on display, but the i5s are all running quiet and cool when web-browsing.
It could be my MBA is an anomaly, but I decided not to chance another one and ordered an identically configured i5 as a replacement.
I'm returning my brand new 13", 8gb ram, 512gb ssd i7 2012 Macbook Air. While the cpu is doing close to nothing, the fan runs at 3200-3400rpm. If I launch Safari and surf a few pages, it revs up to 6500rpm. Temp ranges from 180F to 215F. Doing, I repeat, nothing but web surfing.
And if I quit all non-system processes, it takes forever for the fan to spin down unless I put the machine to sleep and wake it.
The Apple store has no i7s on display, but the i5s are all running quiet and cool when web-browsing.
It could be my MBA is an anomaly, but I decided not to chance another one and ordered an identically configured i5 as a replacement.
How does the temperature compare to your 2011 11"? How about batter life now? Which CPU did you have on the 2011?
I bought a 13" MBA i7 - 256 - 8 at the end of June.
It's virtually silent. I have only heard the fan for a few seconds when I was installing ML last night. Other than that, it's been on the table working fine.
I have checked it dozens of times for heat on the bottom and its slightly warm at worst. No sign of what others are experiencing. I don't think I am loading the processor but am running Parallels with Windows 7 and Office for most of the day and there ain't no heat!
Love the machine...
It's virtually silent. I have only heard the fan for a few seconds when I was installing ML last night. Other than that, it's been on the table working fine.
I have checked it dozens of times for heat on the bottom and its slightly warm at worst. No sign of what others are experiencing. I don't think I am loading the processor but am running Parallels with Windows 7 and Office for most of the day and there ain't no heat!
Love the machine...
It has nothing to do with the machine itself. The same would happen on the i5 model. Google 'macbook air fans running' and you should be able to solve the problem. Why would you return the machine?
I had the same problem, did a clean install and migrated via time machine and that stopped the fans. I ran into a problem when I restored via a time machine backup. A clean install solved the problem, now I hardly hear the fans at all. Even when doing heavy processor work.
I don't get what people are saying about the i7 being hotter than the i5. They are both 17W ULV chips.
The difference in performance is noticeable, and warranted if you use it as your main machine. A $100 upgrade is a no brainer. The question is why wouldn't you?
The Core i7 upgrade is likely worth it if this is going to be your primary system for an extended period of time, particularly if it's acting as a desktop replacement. As a mobile device the standard CPUs are quite fast. If you're an annual upgrader, save your money, but if you're going to hold onto the system for a while and do a lot of heavy work on it, the upgraded CPU is probably worth it.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6063/macbook-air-13inch-mid-2012-review/5
I ordered my 13", 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD MBA with the i5 because I want the absolute minimal heat possible in that configuration. I hope I made the correct choice. I'll find out when it arrives next week.
I just finished taking home an i7 to compare and make a final decision before my 14 days were up. A loose key (the 'y' key) fell off twice and triggered the desire to confirm the i7 and if so return the i5 (the key was pressed on firmly and hasn't fallen off any more).
To make the test as realistic as possible, I cloned my i5's HD to the i7 straight out of the box, ran through a 30 min encoding keeping track of cpu temp, encoding time left, fan speed. I additionally re-ran the encoding while on battery monitoring the battery of both machines periodically to compare one with the other. I'm now performing the light load test and the results will be posted shortly in an update.
The full results can be found here:
http://michael.olivero.com/post/201...i5-vs-i7-Heat-Fan-Battery-Speed-analysis.aspx
To make the test as realistic as possible, I cloned my i5's HD to the i7 straight out of the box, ran through a 30 min encoding keeping track of cpu temp, encoding time left, fan speed. I additionally re-ran the encoding while on battery monitoring the battery of both machines periodically to compare one with the other. I'm now performing the light load test and the results will be posted shortly in an update.
The full results can be found here:
http://michael.olivero.com/post/201...i5-vs-i7-Heat-Fan-Battery-Speed-analysis.aspx
Excellent! That comparison was just what I needed 
Looking very much forward to the rest of it.
Cheers
Looking very much forward to the rest of it.Cheers
Excellent! That comparison was just what I needed
Cheers
Thanks. I've updated the review to draw my conclusions. In summary:
[ I just tried to paste the conclusion but it didn't format it with the spaces and headers & paragraphs, just load it at the link and scroll to the bottom.]
http://michael.olivero.com/post/201...i5-vs-i7-Heat-Fan-Battery-Speed-analysis.aspx
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My conclusions are your balls will also get fried with the i5. You may be covering the exhaust vent inadvertently. The hottest part is the middle rather than the left side like the 2011 model, presumably so when you rest it on your lap the hottest point isn't touching either of your legs.
I have the 13" 2012 Air with i5, and while it does get warm under load, it takes a big load a very long time to get the fans audible. I almost exclusively use the computer on my lap. It doesn't "fry" my balls, but it is warm. I don't notice it getting warmer as the fans spin up, which may correspond with you findings that the system is successful at keeping the temperature down while increasing fan speed.
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This sounds like a symptom of Adobe Flash. Even plain flash banner ads can cause this.
Once again, great!
You have made me seriously rethink this whole issue, I was leaning towards the i7, but the i5 may be more adequate after all. I guess I'd rather have comfort (battery life, a bit less heat and silent fans) than complete my tasks 10-15% faster...Cheers
Then again, the comparison was in regards to the 11" model, which I predict should behave worse when it comes to thermal dissipation. So although a 13" model comparison would be slightly more useful to my decision making process, the 11" comparison is still helpful
I use a safari plugin called "ClickToPlugin" which when on, disables all the flash on every page. This alone has saved me 20-30% battery (Steve Jobs was right -- Flash is a resource hog!). The beauty of the tool however is you see grey boxes where the flash would normally be where you can "click" and the flash loads when you happen to want it. In cases where there is a fall back, say to an HTML5 video, the HTML5 video usually plays and is much better at resources.
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Once again, great!
Cheers
Thanks!...I'm soooooo undecided now myself. I have to decide which one of the two to return but leaning towards keeping the i5 as after all, I have a dedicated iMac desktop (which coincidentally I use more and more as just a monitor plugged into my Macbook though!).
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Another influencing factor if you are on the tipping point between the two machines -- the i7 processor seems to not turboboost while in BootCamp. There is a whole running thread on this -- so technically, as of today until a firmware update is provided, the i5 is actually faster and has a higher user experience index rating on Windows via BootCamp than the i7.
Windows in VMWare or Parallels is not impacted by this and runs full throttle within OSX.
Yeah, I know. Been following that thread, trying to figure out when Apple would amend this. Not so soon apparently...
I intend to do some music production as a hobby. Would having the faster processor reduce audio latency, or is audio processing delegated entirely to the sound car/audio interface?
If you absolutely are on an exact budget, you will most certainly get a bigger bang for the buck with option:
3) 11 inch i5 8gb ram and 128 gb flash memory
If you have large data or multiple applications open, your memory constraints will be more of a detriment to performance than the cpu. Keep in mind, the i5 of 2012 matches the speed and performance of the i7 of 2012 with significantly reduced heat from the machines when compared.
MacBook Air 11" 2012 i5 vs i7 (More Tests)
After reading through the first version of this post, some have asked for CPU intensive tasks such as Handbrake. Additionally, the first post didn't measure battery in a perfectly controlled fashion so this time around one of the experiments focused on that.
For these tests, I once again prepared the MacBook Air 11" 2012 with raw data sources for stressing the CPU. This included an 8gb raw DVD source files placed on the desktop to leverage the SSD's read speed as well as placing 40gb iPhoto library. Once the MacBook Air 2012 11" i5 was all setup, I once again cloned it to other MacBook Air 2012 11" i7 in preparation for the tests.
The tests include (a) a single cpu iPhoto database rebuild, (b) a multi-cpu Handbrake encoding, (c) a real world battery test lasting three hours of continued use, and (d) a handbrake with the i7 MacBook while in docked under a 27" apple display in the closed clam shape mode.
Full results are here:
http://michael.olivero.com/post/201...Heat-Fan-Battery-Speed-Comparison-Part-2.aspx
After reading through the first version of this post, some have asked for CPU intensive tasks such as Handbrake. Additionally, the first post didn't measure battery in a perfectly controlled fashion so this time around one of the experiments focused on that.
For these tests, I once again prepared the MacBook Air 11" 2012 with raw data sources for stressing the CPU. This included an 8gb raw DVD source files placed on the desktop to leverage the SSD's read speed as well as placing 40gb iPhoto library. Once the MacBook Air 2012 11" i5 was all setup, I once again cloned it to other MacBook Air 2012 11" i7 in preparation for the tests.
The tests include (a) a single cpu iPhoto database rebuild, (b) a multi-cpu Handbrake encoding, (c) a real world battery test lasting three hours of continued use, and (d) a handbrake with the i7 MacBook while in docked under a 27" apple display in the closed clam shape mode.
Full results are here:
http://michael.olivero.com/post/201...Heat-Fan-Battery-Speed-Comparison-Part-2.aspx