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MacBook Air 2013 Gaming Performance (Intel HD 5000)

Come on guys...almost one week released and still no 3dmarks..

Are you kidding me? :p

It's Freeware and doesn't take too long

The Air 2012 got around 5800 on 3Dmark06 and 600 on 3Dmark11 whereas the new Acer S7 with HD4400 only just got 5700 points on the 06er and the Sony Vaio Pro 11 also with HD4400 got 600 points on the 3dmark11.
 
Yixian, what are your MBA specs? And are you noticing a lot of heat/fan with FC3?

Also, that YouTube video is with Windows 8 (an steam?), correct?
 
shmeen23 said:
Yixian, what are your MBA specs? And are you noticing a lot of heat/fan with FC3?

Also, that YouTube video is with Windows 8 (an steam?), correct?
Click to expand...

MBA 2013 13" i5 4gb RAM 128GB SSD

Windows 8 but not Steam,

Fan definitely comes on strong after about 30 mins but playing Far Cry 3... I would expect it to! The machine stays very surprisingly cool though...
 
Yixian said:
MBA 2013 13" i5 4gb RAM 128GB SSD

Windows 8 but not Steam,

Fan definitely comes on strong after about 30 mins but playing Far Cry 3... I would expect it to! The machine stays very surprisingly cool though...
Click to expand...

Do you feel that 4GB is enough memory to run smoothly?
 
Flash Storage Speed Slower on 128GB Models vs. 256GB / 512GB

lazerboyz said:
well yeah, if i were to buy the air, i'd get it in 128gb, 8gb RAM and the i7.
costing me 1350.

was just browsing around the net to procrastinate (exams), and decided that Vaio Pro, as nice as it looks wont cut it due to bad iGPU. but the asus zenbooks might stand a chance..? esp the infinity. not sure how much it will cost though.
Click to expand...

Keep in mind, as of the latest tests, the 128GB Flash 2013 MBA's have been clocked with about HALF the write speed (at around 400 MB/s) when compared to the 256GB / 512GB models (at closer to the high 700's BM/s range).

Ryan
 
Last edited:
The 128s in the 11" are slower. The 13"s 128 seem to be faster. There's a head to head test video somewhere on here.
 
HiDEF said:
Do you feel that 4GB is enough memory to run smoothly?
Click to expand...

Farcry 3 is a 32-bit game, it won't take advantage of more than 2gb of ram let alone 8.

There are little/no games I am aware of that would se an FPS boost going from 4 to 8 gigs of ram, even with textures on ultra.

The consensus in the gaming community seems to be that 4gb is all you need now, but 8gb would be more "future" proof. But as good as the HD 5000 is, it's not future proof, by the time games are requiring 8gigs of RAM it'll be the CPU and GPU bottelnecking you.
 
Has anyone tried Skyrim? I know you could play it on the '12, but I'm curious to see what it'd be like on the '13.

If you were going to be using your Air for gaming (which by the look of things a lot of you guys are!) which, in your opinion, are the most important components to enhance? RAM, CPU or SSD? If you could only afford to increase only two, which would you go for? I originally wasn't even considering the 256GB upgrade, but this thread has got me thinking!
 
Yixian said:
ThrottleStop isn't working on my Haswell ...
Click to expand...

ThrottleStop 5.10 supports Haswell. Unforunately the testers overclocked their 4700MQ CPUs, went gaming and haven't been heard from since.

If you want to do some beta testing, send me a PM and I will send you a download link to ThrottleStop 5.10 beta 4.
 
PhD Chick said:
Has anyone tried Skyrim? I know you could play it on the '12, but I'm curious to see what it'd be like on the '13.

If you were going to be using your Air for gaming (which by the look of things a lot of you guys are!) which, in your opinion, are the most important components to enhance? RAM, CPU or SSD? If you could only afford to increase only two, which would you go for? I originally wasn't even considering the 256GB upgrade, but this thread has got me thinking!
Click to expand...

CPU > SSD > RAM in that order, a fast SSD is nice because you can allocate it to virtual memory. Below 4gb ram and you're in trouble, but above it and you gain nothing.
 
anyone here who now has BMA 2013 and who still have or had a BMA 2011 or 2012 ....how is the heat? It is the same level like previous model?
 
Yixian said:
CPU > SSD > RAM in that order, a fast SSD is nice because you can allocate it to virtual memory. Below 4gb ram and you're in trouble, but above it and you gain nothing.
Click to expand...

Cheers, that's really useful to know. I've never owned a computer capable of gaming, so I'm a complete newbie in this area. :p

Did you ever get your Bootcamp Windows 7 problem fixed? Is there a workaround for the USB3 issue? I absolutely can't stand Windows 8 and would like to avoid it at all costs.
 
to you macbook air owners who installed windows could you please install 3dmark06 or 11 and tell us the scores? I think most are more interested in that because there has yet to be any benchmark scores for the Intel HD 5000.

3dmark can be downloaded here
http://www.futuremark.com/support/downloads

its a commonly used program to test a video card's ability to push out 3d graphics. its more often used than specific game FPS scores because its applied more broadly.
 
PhD Chick said:
Cheers, that's really useful to know. I've never owned a computer capable of gaming, so I'm a complete newbie in this area. :p

Did you ever get your Bootcamp Windows 7 problem fixed? Is there a workaround for the USB3 issue? I absolutely can't stand Windows 8 and would like to avoid it at all costs.
Click to expand...

Honestly don't even bother with Windows 7, as far as I can tell its not compatible with the new MBAs, I wasted so many hours on it..

Windows 8 is the way to go, just delete Metro and all it's apps and it runs very smooth.
 
I notice that almost all gaming needs to be done by booting into w8 or w7 - without sounding stupid wouldnt this destroy an SSDs fairly small amount of space? Or do you guys run stripped down windows OSs
 
Yixian said:
Honestly don't even bother with Windows 7, as far as I can tell its not compatible with the new MBAs, I wasted so many hours on it..

Windows 8 is the way to go, just delete Metro and all it's apps and it runs very smooth.
Click to expand...

Slightly gutted about that! I'm really fond of 7. Thanks for the heads up, I'll definitely go with a stripped-down version of 8.
 
For anyone wondering about Fifa 2013 on the Macbook Air, I run it on full settings on my 2012.

Was running it on low for a while, Upgraded to the latest graphics drivers from the intel site and everything runs ridiculously better now. Schoolboy error on my part.
 
again, i ask, how is the hear of these new MBA, is the same of previous models when you are playing games?
 
Chouhen said:
I notice that almost all gaming needs to be done by booting into w8 or w7 - without sounding stupid wouldnt this destroy an SSDs fairly small amount of space? Or do you guys run stripped down windows OSs
Click to expand...

I run Win 8 stripped down, ie. Metro and all it's apps removed and hibernation off, slims it down to about 8-9GB. I just install one or two games at a time.

ElDogman said:
to you macbook air owners who installed windows could you please install 3dmark06 or 11 and tell us the scores? I think most are more interested in that because there has yet to be any benchmark scores for the Intel HD 5000.

3dmark can be downloaded here
http://www.futuremark.com/support/downloads
Click to expand...

Sheeeet, 1GB? I'll download it overnight and run it tomorrow for you.

Serban said:
again, i ask, how is the hear of these new MBA, is the same of previous models when you are playing games?
Click to expand...

I didn't game on my 2011, but the 2013 fans do come on while gaming, it's not particularly loud but then I do wear headphones.

Am surprised at how cool the machine stays.
 
3dmark06 Scores

After 3 days of trying to get Windows 7 installed today I was successful with the help of someone in the Apple forums...funny that I have been working with Apple on trying to get this accomplished and they have still yet to come back to me with their solution...anyway as I said finally installed win7 and ran 3dmark06 test and the score I got was 6407...seemed a bit low but looks to be 40% faster than scores listed for the 4000. This is on the 11inch base model with a fresh install of windows and nothing else....
 
mitchellba said:
After 3 days of trying to get Windows 7 installed today I was successful with the help of someone in the Apple forums...funny that I have been working with Apple on trying to get this accomplished and they have still yet to come back to me with their solution...anyway as I said finally installed win7 and ran 3dmark06 test and the score I got was 6407...seemed a bit low but looks to be 40% faster than scores listed for the 4000. This is on the 11inch base model with a fresh install of windows and nothing else....
Click to expand...

thanks for the 06 benchmarks! you perhaps might have done the first Intel HD 5000 benchmark for it ever! :eek:

given all the FPS people are getting, 6,000 does seem a bit lower than expected.
would reckon it would've gotten somewhere between 8,000 to 11,000
 
BASTI51 said:
Thank you very much. Would be nice if Yixian can verify this nevertheless.
Click to expand...

Downloading overnight (it's 10pm UK) and I'll run it in the morning. I guess I'll probably get the same as the other poster, Farcry 3 is running well for me but that's with tinkering... Tinkering can mean the difference between 10 and 30fps in most demanding games.

What I am seeing is what I would expect compared to the HD 4000, which, bare in mind, can run Bioshock Infinite on medium settings at 720p: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LZ-1ZpdbbA
 
mitchellba said:
After 3 days of trying to get Windows 7 installed today I was successful with the help of someone in the Apple forums...funny that I have been working with Apple on trying to get this accomplished and they have still yet to come back to me with their solution...anyway as I said finally installed win7 and ran 3dmark06 test and the score I got was 6407...seemed a bit low but looks to be 40% faster than scores listed for the 4000. This is on the 11inch base model with a fresh install of windows and nothing else....
Click to expand...

Were you using the latest intel driver? Others have said that had increased performance. Thanks for the results. I've been following this forum.

I have an Alienware m11x R2 that just benched 7083 on 3dmark06. It has an Nvidia GT 335m. It just seems like the score for the 2013 MBA should be a bit more to me. I could be dreaming too because I want the new Air so bad.

Thanks again to you and others for testing these out.
 
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