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thekev

macrumors 604
Aug 5, 2010
7,005
3,343
And he said "Thankfully none of my tests show substantial scaling with memory capacity beyond 4GB so that shouldn't be a huge deal. Both SSDs are the same Samsung PCIe based solution...."

You can try to rationalize it all you want. At idle both consume the same voltage, the difference being that the i7 is clocked faster and is more powerful than the i5. Period. Whether that is worth $150 for you, that is another story.

The cpu speed difference between those two is garbage in actual use. If one is insufficient, grab a quad core. You're unlikely to be accomplished any task with the i7 Air that can't be accomplished with the same effort on the i5.


So just because word processing won't max out an i5 doesn't make recommending the slower processor any better advice. When it comes to computers, more memory, more disk space, and more CPU horsepower is good. The extra "heat" and "battery" issues have been debunked as myths. My advice? Buy the most computer you can afford. Period. Be you a student or a doctor or a bus driver.

Battery life is something that might might help here. If he needed every bit of x86 power, he wouldn't want an Air. I suspect he'll be constrained by battery age, display aging, or ram long before it becomes an issue of splitting hairs between x86 processor choices.
 

mattferg

macrumors 6502
May 27, 2013
380
22
No, maybe not, but I am not in the habit of recommending underpowered configurations especially if I intend to keep the system for a while, as I assume a college student would. If he cannot afford the extra $150, then fine, don't. But if you are spending that kind of money on a laptop and can afford the extra $150, then do. This matter of "worth" is tied to one's personal situation. Not all college students are poor. Many college students are doing computer majors and could definitely use the extra horsepower, whether it be with iMovie or programming or playing the ocassional game.

So just because word processing won't max out an i5 doesn't make recommending the slower processor any better advice. When it comes to computers, more memory, more disk space, and more CPU horsepower is good. The extra "heat" and "battery" issues have been debunked as myths. My advice? Buy the most computer you can afford. Period. Be you a student or a doctor or a bus driver.

And you're now arguing the i5 is underpowered? Bizarre.
 

CaptainSay

macrumors newbie
Jul 18, 2013
1
0
Many college students are doing computer majors and could definitely use the extra horsepower, whether it be with iMovie or programming or playing the ocassional game.
Just to be fair, I am a computer science and mathematics undergraduate on my senior year.

I never needed much horsepower.

Most programming can be done just fine on a baseline MacBook pro at the university level, and even outside of it it seems, as I work in iOS development and Android development as a second job, and in Unity 3D for an internship.

It's graphics that seem to eat up the power. Unless I'm baking something in Unity, which is extremely rare as I am not the one in charge of that side of development, my 2010 13" MBP shows little to no lag.

I'm not trying to shoot you down, but if you're buying a MacBook Air, I assume you're not using it for anything intense, or you shouldn't be considering it since it's meant to be ultraportable, not ultrapowerful.

For almost all undergraduate needs, a baseline anything will do just fine.

I went through most of college on a netbook, a little Acer Aspire One netbook, for all of my introductory computer science courses.

The power-hungry programs are available at labs which hold computers much more powerful. They don't give out many licenses for intense programs. That's way too much money lost.

Just a heads up to any new college students reading this.

You will most likely have labs with late night hours, or even 24 hours, so you really may not even NEED a computer.

They're just nice to have in this day and age.
 

cdubb80

macrumors member
May 15, 2011
63
0
I am majoring in Biomedical Sciences and Pre medicine. I am looking to buy a MBA and I am uncertain of what core to buy. I know that the i7 has better performance, but at the cost of battery life.

This is probably one of the most first world problems I've ever had, but I don't know what to choose.

From a recent graduate from a medical residency what I'd recommend is go for the best battery life.

when I was going thru premed and med school 6 yrs a good laptop battery life was getting 3+ hours, so you'd need to recharge.

Now these new MBA supposedly get 11-12 hours on light use, but goes down to 4.5-5.5 hrs on heavy use. You may sit thru 6-8 hrs of lectures per day. you are likely mainly using ms word, power points, reading PDFs. Not highly intensive computing (I used a dell mini hackintosh at one point)

Not having to find a outlet plug to charge your laptop is a major convenience. My med school class was over 200 students - there weren't that many outlets available in the lecture theatre, but maybe now things have changed.
 

Cuthbert

macrumors regular
Feb 4, 2008
135
0
I'm stuck in this dilemma as well. I mostly just surf the web/email/itunes and some word/excel. The issue is my excel sheets usually require the windows version which means running vm ware fusion and windows/excel. Not sure how much I feel the upgrade in the VM scenario. Im going to get 8gb ram and 256HD just need to sort out the processor so I can pull the trigger.

I would like another opinion on this. Would I notice a speed increase when running vm ware fusion with an i7 over an i5?
 

pickaxe

macrumors 6502a
Nov 29, 2012
760
284
140$ is a TON of money if you are going to invest it in tech-related stuff:

- you could be getting an awesome corded/wireless/bluetooth gaming mouse.
- 140$ is about half the cost of a Korean 27" PLS/IPS monitor from eBay.
- you could be getting several external hard drives.
- you could be getting some semi-decent PC speakers.
- you could just save it.

IMO all of these options are better uses of your money. Especially the Korean displays or the external mice.
 

Saturn1217

macrumors 65816
Apr 28, 2008
1,262
832
I would like another opinion on this. Would I notice a speed increase when running vm ware fusion with an i7 over an i5?

I am trying to figure out the i5 vs i7 too. But I can say that for virtual machines (i'm using virtual box but the same should apply to vm ware) the main speed bump I saw going from my core 2 duo 2009 MBP to my current 2012 i7 MBA was in starting the virtual machine and i think was mainly due to the dramatic increase in SSD speed. Actually getting work done in the virtual machine was comparable. I also needed the PC version of excel for work btw. Unless your excel sheets are very very large the cpu probably won't matter for that particular application.
 

Cuthbert

macrumors regular
Feb 4, 2008
135
0
I am trying to figure out the i5 vs i7 too. But I can say that for virtual machines (i'm using virtual box but the same should apply to vm ware) the main speed bump I saw going from my core 2 duo 2009 MBP to my current 2012 i7 MBA was in starting the virtual machine and i think was mainly due to the dramatic increase in SSD speed. Actually getting work done in the virtual machine was comparable. I also needed the PC version of excel for work btw. Unless your excel sheets are very very large the cpu probably won't matter for that particular application.

I appreciate your response. I'm running fusion for electronic medical charting - I'm tired of using crappy company PCs. I will not be doing large excell sheets or any graphic intense programs.
 

iBio

macrumors newbie
Jul 10, 2013
4
0
biology student here:

You won't need the i7. save the money and buy a proper mouse/keyboard/hdd. In the rare case that you'll ever have to analyze images, model stuff, sequence alignments etc. you'll run these things on servers.
 

mortenandersen

macrumors 6502
Apr 9, 2011
412
20
Norway
Totally off the point

Ok, I guess i'll go back to my crappy i7 MBA and cry over how much more wonderful the i5 would have been. :rolleyes:
ZBoater is totally off the point and really deserves no more attention. The "Okay" answer post should be an appropriate end for this "intermezzo". Nevertheless, I just want to make the point that the posts that ZBoater has made and the answers to them are rather interesting "material" for a psychologically minded reader to use for analysis about the human irrational and emotional dynamics that is in high degree displayed in this part of the thread, contrasted to the computer-science based points of view.
 

mortenandersen

macrumors 6502
Apr 9, 2011
412
20
Norway
And thanks for the good reply!

I'm flattered. Thank you for such an illuminating post. :rolleyes:

I got a bit carried away myself, and sorry for that! I'am glad for your sarcastic and good-humor tone in your reply. :)My point is really that it is amazing how much personal (emotional) strength most of us (me too) invest in these rather technical matters, perhaps matters that really mean little or nothing in the day to day use of the MBA. :D

Peace.
 

ZBoater

macrumors G3
Jul 2, 2007
8,497
1,322
Sunny Florida
I got a bit carried away myself, and sorry for that! I'am glad for your sarcastic and good-humor tone in your reply. :)My point is really that it is amazing how much personal (emotional) strength most of us (me too) invest in these rather technical matters, perhaps matters that really mean little or nothing in the day to day use of the MBA. :D

Peace.

I'm glad you picked up on the sarcasm. Most of the time it is meant in jest and unappreciated. Life's too short to take oneself too seriously. These topics are therapeutic for me. It may seem like a lot is being invested, but it really isn't.

Peace right back at ya. :)
 
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