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graphics benchmarks old 11" vs new 11"

quisguous

quisguous

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 9, 2009
29
2
I've been looking for a reason not to upgrade to the latest MBA. You see, I'm rather fond of having the latest and greatest, but its probably better if I didn't spend all my money on computer upgrades. :)

I thought I had my excuse in the seemingly downgraded video chipset, since I'm currently rocking an 11" MBA with the Nvidia 320M and the new MBA's only got the Intel HD3000. Alas, even discounting the fact that my MBA probably has more background stuff going than the brand-spanking-new MBA I tested in Best Buy, and also discounting for the benchmark not being totally representative of the games I play and all that, it seems that the new MBA is doing ok in the graphics department:

My MBA

Results 62.73
Xbench Version 1.3
System Version 10.7 (11A511)
Physical RAM 4096 MB
Model MacBookAir3,1
Drive Type Macintosh (aka OWC Mercury Aura)
Quartz Graphics Test 129.30
Line 121.32 8.08 Klines/sec [50% alpha]
Rectangle 142.33 42.49 Krects/sec [50% alpha]
Circle 113.84 9.28 Kcircles/sec [50% alpha]
Bezier 133.08 3.36 Kbeziers/sec [50% alpha]
Text 140.78 8.81 Kchars/sec
OpenGL Graphics Test 83.65
Spinning Squares 83.65 106.12 frames/sec
User Interface Test 35.54
Elements 35.54 163.10 refresh/sec

Best Buy's MBA

Results 120.78
System Info
Xbench Version 1.3
System Version 10.7 (11A2063)
Physical RAM 2048 MB
Model MacBookAir4,1
Drive Type APPLE SSD SM064C
Quartz Graphics Test 266.79
Line 257.45 17.14 Klines/sec [50% alpha]
Rectangle 339.03 101.22 Krects/sec [50% alpha]
Circle 250.11 20.39 Kcircles/sec [50% alpha]
Bezier 227.80 5.75 Kbeziers/sec [50% alpha]
Text 284.16 17.78 Kchars/sec
OpenGL Graphics Test 105.54
Spinning Squares 105.54 133.89 frames/sec
User Interface Test 86.10
Elements 86.10 395.13 refresh/sec
 
Yeah, but how are the graphics under Windows?? It seems like everything being compared and benchmarked right now is for OSX Lion when comparing to the 2010 model. There must be a reason why last year's Air was thoroughly benchmarked in Windows 7 and this year's model seems to be avoided.
 
gman901 said:
There must be a reason why last year's Air was thoroughly benchmarked in Windows 7 and this year's model seems to be avoided.
Click to expand...

Or maybe it's because the Air was released today and nobody got a chance to install w7 and games on it yet...
 
I'm wondering why is it the build version different to the Golden Master?

GM = 10.7 (11A511)
MacBook Air 2011 = 10.7 (11A2063)

Anyone? :confused:
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_8 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8E401 Safari/6533.18.5)

The MacBook air got a great update
 
I don't even have the upgraded 5870 graphics card on my Mac Pro, I have the Radeon 5770, and here is how mine turned out:


Results 385.30
System Info
Xbench Version 1.3
System Version 10.7 (11A511)
Physical RAM 12288 MB
Model MacPro5,1
Drive Type OWC Mercury Extreme Pro SSD
Quartz Graphics Test 381.75
Line 377.82 25.15 Klines/sec [50% alpha]
Rectangle 531.09 158.56 Krects/sec [50% alpha]
Circle 385.94 31.46 Kcircles/sec [50% alpha]
Bezier 322.33 8.13 Kbeziers/sec [50% alpha]
Text 347.89 21.76 Kchars/sec
OpenGL Graphics Test 386.35
Spinning Squares 386.35 490.10 frames/sec
User Interface Test 387.86
Elements 387.86 1.78 Krefresh/sec


Having a desktop-powered discreet graphics card really makes a difference.
 
gman901 said:
Yeah, but how are the graphics under Windows?? It seems like everything being compared and benchmarked right now is for OSX Lion when comparing to the 2010 model. There must be a reason why last year's Air was thoroughly benchmarked in Windows 7 and this year's model seems to be avoided.
Click to expand...

Why would people be rushing to benchmark a MAC laptop in Windows 7? What's the point? If you want a laptop to game in Windows 7 there are a million choices better than a MBA, with discrete graphics cards and the lot.

WardC said:
I don't even have the upgraded 5870 graphics card on my Mac Pro, I have the Radeon 5770, and here is how mine turned out:
<snip!>
Having a desktop-powered discreet graphics card really makes a difference.
Click to expand...

Did you think that it wouldn't? Why would one compare a desktop graphics card to Intel's Integrated chip? Intel's chip also takes about 6-8W of Power. The 5770 takes 108W under load. Not sure they're gonna get a 108W GPU into the MBA anytime soon! :rolleyes:
 
fyrefly said:
Why would people be rushing to benchmark a MAC laptop in Windows 7? What's the point? If you want a laptop to game in Windows 7 there are a million choices better than a MBA, with discrete graphics cards and the lot.

Did you think that it wouldn't? Why would one compare a desktop graphics card to Intel's Integrated chip? Intel's chip also takes about 6-8W of Power. The 5770 takes 108W under load. Not sure they're gonna get a 108W GPU into the MBA anytime soon! :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

We're down to the 28nm process on graphics cards in Q4 of this year (down from 40nm).

After 28nm I think the next step is 16nm or 20-22nm... I forget.

Every time the process is reduced, the amount of power required is reduced. Essentially once we get down to around the lowest possible nm process on a silicon chip, we're looking at not only insane graphics performance on a desktop... but huge benefits for laptops! :D

Of course, silicon isn't necessarily the way of the future. Things may change before the nm process is reduced down to super super low amounts on silicon. We might switch to who knows what!

The 7000-series by Radeon will be out this year by December and will feature 28nm cards... insane performance boosts. In a few years (3-4) we're looking at real-time ray tracing in games due to the graphics boost offered purely by the advancement in the nm process. The gist of it all: Tech is looking good for a while to come.
 
WardC said:
Having a desktop-powered discreet graphics card really makes a difference.
Click to expand...

Now put that box in a small bag, leave home and then try using it without plugging it in the wall at your preferred location.

Mr Orange: "I hate them Apples!" (what? he didn't say that?)
 
I was just making a comparison to a desktop-level card (which, the 5770 provides about 3x faster graphics than the HD 3000). You're also driving a much lower-resolution display on the MacBook Air, so it's really not as much of an issue.
 
That was my theory as well... figured an NVIDIA chip that lived by itself (not built into the CPU) and had 32 pipelines instead of only 12 would do far better, but it appears to be benching much lower than the HD 3000.

However, I will only be satisfied if I can see some video of side-by-side in game rendering and gameplay FPS comparisons so we can see how it is stacking up in real application.
 
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