2013 MBA Ultimate vs 2013 15" rMBP Base

[PoppaKap]

How apparent will the power difference be between the two for light photo work and extensive Microsoft Office use?

The MBA appears to come out on top in the single core benchmarks but the rMBP trounces the MBA in multicore. So in a hypothetical office environment, how different will the speeds be?

I am buying one or the other today.

 

[waldpet]

I bought a Mid-2013 13" MBA 8gb i7 last week to replace my 2010 MBP 15". After seeing the recent MBPr refresh I have returned said MBA and got a MBPr 13". It ended up being around £80 cheaper and for what I use it for I couldn't see the point of paying more for MBA with a very similar spec and the lower grade display (which I started to hate).

From my experience with the upgraded MBA is that it is an extremely impressive performing computer however I just could deal with the screen quality and the small black boarder around the screen, probably because I have always been a Pro used since I changed my old White MacBook many years ago. That said, the MBA will easily cope with what you've said you'll use it for and the MBPr 15" will probably be overpowered.

 

[PoppaKap]

Thanks. I'm wondering how much difference the quad core makes.

 

[waldpet]

Thanks. I'm wondering how much difference the quad core makes.

The quad cores will obviously mean the computers CPU performance will be far stronger. The Geekbench results for the quad core are almost twice as high but this becomes somewhat irrelevant if you don't actually need it.

Geekbench performance is vanity, usable perfomance is sanity

 

[jamesjingyi]

Thanks. I'm wondering how much difference the quad core makes.

The MacBook Airs are dual core with 4 threads meaning they 'act' like quad core machines. The MacBook Pros on the other hand have 8 threads meaning it acts like an 8 core machine...

 

[PoppaKap]

The MacBook Airs are dual core with 4 threads meaning they 'act' like quad core machines. The MacBook Pros on the other hand have 8 threads meaning it acts like an 8 core machine...

So with daily tasks in an office--web, some photo work, email, manipulating huge PDFs, word processing--The quad core will feel faster?

 

[justin216]

Thanks. I'm wondering how much difference the quad core makes.

Performance delta is about 20-30% on most single thread benchmarks, and 90-110% on multi-thread benchmarks. Naturally, more cores = better performance on multi-thread tests.

You can review GeekBench results for all Macs at http://browser.primatelabs.com/mac-benchmarks

 

[PoppaKap]

Performance delta is about 20-30% on most single thread benchmarks, and 90-110% on multi-thread benchmarks. Naturally, more cores = better performance on multi-thread tests.

You can review GeekBench results for all Macs at http://browser.primatelabs.com/mac-benchmarks

Thank you. How can you tell what programs utilize multi-thread?

 

[justin216]

Thank you. How can you tell what programs utilize multi-thread?

Most applications are multi-threaded, as in they can utilize multiple threads, but not everything is heavy enough to show a discernible difference.

You'd notice the most difference using video transcoding applications, Photoshop, Final Cut, development tools, etc -- so mostly pro applications and games would see the most benefit.

 

[jamesjingyi]

So with daily tasks in an office--web, some photo work, email, manipulating huge PDFs, word processing--The quad core will feel faster?

Only if you are using multiple, CPU intensive task which none of theses seems to be apart from maybe the PDFs, however Dual core (4 thread) will be fine for this.

 

[PoppaKap]

Thanks for the help everyone. I just got home with a new rMBP 15" base model. Couldn't be more happy.