You sure? I've seen the geek bench scores. It's way higher than the maxed out 13.
You were probably looking at 64 bit geekbench scores vs 32-bit scores. They have the same CPUs so one won't be faster than the other, unless there are throttling issues due to heat, which would mean the 13" will be faster over long-running tasks.
Geekbench is not really a good comparison since you cannot be sure if all of the users ran the benchmark when the CPU was not busy doing other things. Even when the CPU is idling, it's possible to run Geekbench multiple times and receive scores that range by about 100 to 150 points one way or the other.
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It is probably comparing the i7 11" to the i5 13" The two i7 models otherwise perform virtually identically because they are otherwise identical on the inside. There may be minor variation from model to model because of the two different SSDs that Apple uses (the Samsung is slightly faster), and because the 13" has a higher resolution screen, which might slow down some tests that simply draw something to fill the screen.
OTOH, the 13" is not available with an i7 processor and 128GB SSD combination. Only the 11" is, so it might still be better for you if you don't need the extra internal storage.
Indeed, but Geekbench only tests your CPU and memory speed so screen resolution and storage speed do not impact it.
Edit to add:
32-bit scores
MacBook Air (11-inch Mid 2012) Intel Core i7-3667U 2000 MHz (2 cores) 6900
MacBook Air (13-inch Mid 2012) Intel Core i7-3667U 2000 MHz (2 cores) 6883
7 points is not a variance that can be considered to be significant. As I said above, I could run Geekbench over and over on these machines and produce scores ranging from 6850 to 6950 and, possibly, even further out.
http://browser.primatelabs.com/mac-benchmarks
To further illustrate this, let's look at the 64-bit geekbench scores for the 2011 models
MacBook Air (11-inch Mid 2011) Intel Core i7-2677M 1800 MHz (2 cores) 6359
MacBook Air (13-inch Mid 2011) Intel Core i7-2677M 1800 MHz (2 cores) 6300
Yet, I get 6405 (no, wait 6393, no, now it's 6394 - the scores change each time you run it). Does that mean my MBA is the fastest 2011 in the world? No. These scores are averages of what people have achieved and, as I said, how people run the benchmarks differs. If they are running other applications and services, it will impact the Geekbench score. These user run benchmarks are ok for quick comparisons, but because they are not run in a controlled environment, minor variances can be ignored.
