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Early Benchmarks Put Retina MacBook CPU Performance in Range of 2011 MacBook Air

subsonix said:
That's completely wrong, you get higher performance in a smaller portable format. A lot of people who use a workstation but could use a smaller machine, would. PCIe flash may be the direction SSDs are moving in but it goes completely against your narrative that Apple uses outdated old hardware as a norm.
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Nothing I said was wrong. In order to utilize that speed, you need a workstation. The type of work you will be doing in order to utilize that transfer speed is not something the laptop is capable of handling ... such as rendering 4K video with 32 GB, 64 GB, 128 GB of RAM or 3D renderings. You're not understanding anything I said so discussing this is pointless. I didn't contradict myself. You're just not getting it. It's overkill and can't be utilized by the machine. The speed of the storage is impressive, but it's overkill and will never be taken advantage of and only serves to drive up the cost of the laptop, which further solidifies my other point. That PCI-E flash is not in there to be used, it's to drive up cost. Apple already charges far too much for their flash storage as it is.

The current Macs have no problem handling many tasks ... that is not the issue here. The problem is that Apple is not advancing in the area of performance. They're focused on appearances and thinness. Price to performance compared to other laptops in this price range is silly.
 
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\-V-/ said:
Nothing I said was wrong. In order to utilize that speed, you need a workstation. The type of work you will be doing in order to utilize that transfer speed is not something the laptop is capable of handling.
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BS, in order to utilize that speed you need an I/O bus that can handle it, which PCIe does with margin. Applications that handle large files or massive I/O doesn't necessarily need to be related to graphics or rendering.

\-V-/ said:
The problem is that Apple is not advancing in the area of performance. They're focused on appearances and thinness. Price to performance compared to other laptops in this price range is silly.
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In this particular case they are advancing in the area of mobility. This new MacBook is not a product aimed at high performance computing, and it's a product that is added to the existing models.
 
subsonix said:
BS, in order to utilize that speed you need an I/O bus that can handle it, which PCIe does with margin. Applications that handle large files or massive I/O doesn't necessarily need to be related to graphics or rendering.
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You're going to keep going on and on without making any valid points so this discussion is done. Enjoy being an Apple apologist.
 
I think its a great machine.

If you want more power in a similar frame, go for the Air.

If you want even more power for for the Pro.

Pretty simple really. And the Air will be next in line for a redesign. Perhaps ready for 10.11 launch. Then all macbooks will be retina. I'm hoping all lines get colour options too. I'll take a space grey pro please.
 
\-V-/ said:
You're going to keep going on and on without making any valid points so this discussion is done. Enjoy being an Apple apologist.
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You are the one who keep going on and on without making a valid point. You simply don't know it. It's the unknown unknowns to quote Donald Rumsfeld. ;)
 
Early Benchmarks Put Retina MacBook CPU Performance in Range of 2011 MacBook Air

I think that this is pretty Damn disingenuous reporting from macrumors considering they are comparing the maxed out i7 MBA to the base model MBr. If you go to geek bench and actually look at the machines that this is in the same ball park of you will see that it is about as fast as a 2014 BASEMODEL i5 MBA. Which is plenty fast enough for whatever you throw at it.

Not to mention that this thing has 8gb of ram, faster graphics, and a faster ssd then last year's MBA which will provide way more day to day speed then a marginally faster processor.

No you should not mine bitcoins with it, but here are some other machines it is in the same ball park of. You be the judge if they are considered slow by any means.

bef3cc42064a5b361e39989bf443a88a.jpg


I for one applaud Intel for focusing on longevity. We are almost at the point of diminishing returns on adding faster processors to our casual computers. I don't need a super computer to do a few photos hope touch ups, and I am a prosumer more so then The vast majority of people I know.
 
kingofwale said:
Pro:
-thinner
-retina display

Con:
-expensive
-huge compromise on ports
-horrid performance
-keyboard takes time to get used to


it's everything I moved away from netbook for. I was so sure about buying one during keynote, Now I am seriously needing to rethink that
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I'm not too knowledgeable, but how do you know it'll have horrid performance? It's not out yet. Isn't performance down to more than just CPU? The 2011 i7 Air didn't have horrid performance.
 
mellofello said:
Not to mention that this thing has 8gb of ram, faster graphics, and a faster ssd then last year's MBA which will provide way more day to day speed then a marginally faster processor.
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It does have faster graphics, but this is neutralized quite a bit by the much higher resolution display. It will even out the performance to that of older models. That's not to say this is a bad thing, but it's not going to give the laptop any noticeable performance boost in overall use. The high res display is obviously a welcome feature and the onboard graphics are now able to drive the display without chugging along here and there.


subsonix said:
I have also made several points, you simply choose to ignore them, and instead resort to ad hominem arguments instead of addressing a point. What you say here is opinion, which is ok when there are no objective facts but not here.
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I don't feel your comments are capable of achieving anything other than white noise, so please stop responding. It's tiresome.
 
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yea the 2011 Macbook air didn't have the SSD from this Macbook and 8 Gb RAM and HD5300...so only the cpu are almost equal..the rest components in the macbook are better
 
mellofello said:
If you go to geek bench and actually look at the machines that this is in the same ball park of you will see that it is about as fast as a 2014 BASEMODEL i5 MBA.
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Are you comparing those 32 bit scores to MBr's 64 bit score? Apples and oranges.
 
I understand trying to pull something new out of a hat, but making a portable, understandably cool looking, but also slower than a 2 core MBP from 2010, just not cool in my book. They will sell well, but will safari even work well with lots of tabs?
 
macpro2000 said:
I understand trying to pull something new out of a hat, but making a portable, understandably cool looking, but also slower than a 2 core MBP from 2010, just not cool in my book. They will sell well, but will safari even work well with lots of tabs?
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This laptop will be overkill for web browsing with multiple tabs, yes. It'll even do text editing. :rolleyes:
 
I was all ready to replace my Late 2010 13" Air with this machine. This benchmark has made me seriously rethink.

I don't need a powerhouse but after four years I expect a semi-decent upgrade.

My Air is listed at 1188. Other Core M laptops can Geekbench to nearly 3k single-core. I was expecting the rMB to be at least twice as fast as my ageing Core 2 Duo machine. If this benchmark is true, then the rMB is just too much of a compromise.

Like many people, I think what I really wanted was a 13" Air with a Retina screen. I think today I would go buy an updated 13" Air - even with the same screen - except they didn't update it with Force Touch.

It's not so much the weight of the Pro that is the problem, but the lack of the taper. I use my laptop while lying down and I don't want a battering ram of a front edge in my stomach.
 
13" Retina Macbook Question

Hello everyone, first time poster, long time lurker... Love this site!

I just gave my 13" Air to my daughter and am in the market for a laptop for myself. I am posting this question here as not sure which other thread to post it in.

Question: Do you all think that Apple will update the 13" laptop to retina and give it better specs than the 12" latest laptop soon to hit the market? In other words should I buy the 12" or wait for a 13" with better specs (which I would prefer). They are all light and thin enough for me...
Thanks much.
 
My only issue with the performance of this MacBook is future-proofing. I know that the performance of a 2011 MBA is good enough right now, since that's what I have. But I'm running out of HD space, the battery life is declining, and a few things are crashing on me that I can't bother fixing anymore, so long story short I'm looking for an upgrade. I love the portability and for sure a retina MBA would have been ideal, but what can you do.

So I wonder if not only the new MB will run Yosemite smoothly (it looks like it should), but how will it fare in 4 years and two OS upgrades later? What are the kind of applications that will suffer from the (lack of) performance of this processor? Will I be able to run Parallels (with Windows on it), Office, a web browser (with bazillion tabs open), iTunes, an email program and TextMate simultaneously? It seems to me that as long as there's enough RAM there should be no problem. Or am I off-base here?

The lack of ports is not really an issue as long as you fork the dough for the multi-headed dongle (and they stuffed this baby with batteries so that's why there's no room for a second USB-C port either). Sure, they could have included the dongle for free, but this is Apple we're talking about...
 
Applefreak007 said:
Hello everyone, first time poster, long time lurker... Love this site!

I just gave my 13" Air to my daughter and am in the market for a laptop for myself. I am posting this question here as not sure which other thread to post it in.

Question: Do you all think that Apple will update the 13" laptop to retina and give it better specs than the 12" latest laptop soon to hit the market? In other words should I buy the 12" or wait for a 13" with better specs (which I would prefer). They are all light and thin enough for me...
Thanks much.
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Do you mean the 13" air? The 13" retina pro was updated a few weeks ago.

That is really hard to answer. I personally think this new MacBook will become the air. It has taken over what the air was suppose to be, ultra light, thin, and portable.
 
Even Longer said:
Asceticism at its best. They should include a Zen brochure with a title

"how to train patience and get joy from waiting while staring at the rotating coloured disc"
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I wasn't aware this machine had a mechanical hard drive and 2 GB of RAM. :rolleyes:

When do you ever get the beachball from CPU tasks? And why would you buy this for CPU intensive tasks? People love to complain about anything.
 
CIA said:
Am I the only one left who wants CPU horsepower over battery life?
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Probably not, but you are the only one left who doesn't realise that Apple is selling a whole range of laptop and desktop computers.

Get a MacPro with 12 cores and 0.000 seconds battery life.
 
mattopotamus said:
Do you mean the 13" air? The 13" retina pro was updated a few weeks ago.

That is really hard to answer. I personally think this new MacBook will become the air. It has taken over what the air was suppose to be, ultra light, thin, and portable.
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Yes sorry I meant the 13" air. Thanks for your reply. I wonder why they do not provide them with retina display.
 
Applefreak007 said:
Question: Do you all think that Apple will update the 13" laptop to retina and give it better specs than the 12" latest laptop soon to hit the market? In other words should I buy the 12" or wait for a 13" with better specs (which I would prefer).
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I don't think that Apple will update the Air with anything different than CPUs anymore.
I'd either get the new Macbook (if you don't care about the lack of ports) or get the overall awesome retina MacbookPro (if you don't care about the added weight and thickness).
 
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