I just ordered MBA 2011 model with i5 1.7 4GB DDR3 to replace my late 2008 MBP 15" 2.66 Core 2 Duo 4GB DDR3. Would the MBA be faster than MBP? I saw some benchmarks of MBA and it looks significant faster. Has anyone did similar to mine and found MBA to be faster? I haven't receive mine yet. I will use it mostly for web surfing and Adobe Lightroom for pictures post processing.
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Macbook Air vs MBP
- Thread starter dojoman
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It is a different league, you will be in speed heaven when compare to the speed of your mbp, mostly because of SSD, but the CPU is much faster as well. I don't have a MBP, but my wife's 2011 MBA is much faster than my laptop with spec. comparable to your macbook pro.
Get a 2012 MBP and put an SSD and 16gb of Ram in it and he will destroy the MBA in terms of performance.
Did you read OP? OP has an old 2008 MBP that has a core 2 duo CPU, not comparing to 2012 MBP. Even compare to 2012 MBP, the 2012 MBP is just slightly faster, + OP never ask whether he/she should choose 2012 MBP or MBA.
I received my MBA yesterday. To my surprise I received better specd model. 1.8Ghz i7. The guy from ebay had the model number wrong. Anyway I haven't open it yet as I'm trying to sell my MBP. I'm not sure how much I can get for it. I used it mainly for desktop replacement and it's like brand new.
Summary: new air works smarter and therefore faster than the old pro. New pro has more muscle than the new air.
how do you know this? always been intrigued as to how exactly the comparison works. I previously had a 2.93ghz Core 2 Duo MBP and now my 1.7ghz i5 2012 MBA and 2.7ghz i5 2011 iMac are so much quicker. Is there a table for comparison you know of or something i could see?
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i am assuming its a 13" MBA and therefore the 1.8 is the base model, 1.7 was surely just a misprint.
Went from a 2008 unibody macbook and MBP (both 2.4 c2d) to a 2011 i7 13" MBA.
The difference? How do I put this in terms you'll understand....?
Eh, do you remember when you first went from a dial up modem to highspeed internet? That's overstating it maybe just a tad, but it's almost that big of a difference.
The difference? How do I put this in terms you'll understand....?
Eh, do you remember when you first went from a dial up modem to highspeed internet? That's overstating it maybe just a tad, but it's almost that big of a difference.
how do you know this? always been intrigued as to how exactly the comparison works. I previously had a 2.93ghz Core 2 Duo MBP and now my 1.7ghz i5 2012 MBA and 2.7ghz i5 2011 iMac are so much quicker. Is there a table for comparison you know of or something i could see?
For starters, the 1.7GHz i5 can turbo boost up to 2.6GHz. Plus, the Ivy Bridge micro architecture is 2.5 generations ahead of the Core 2 Duo. The jump from Core 2 to Nehalem (the first generation Core) offered about a 20% boost on a GHz for GHz basis. The jump from Nehalem to Sandy Bridge was another 15% or so (these are all rough since they depend on the type of computation). Ivy Bridge is the same CPU architecture as Sandy Bridge. The main difference is that it is built on a smaller process, so they can boost the clock speed using the same amount of power.
Here are some benchmarks. The only problem is the oldest thing is the 13' 2010 MBP that used the last generation cpu so I would think that is the closest.
13-inch Early 2010 Intel Core 2 Duo P8800 2.66 GHz (2 cores) 3,652
11-inch Mid 2012 Intel Core i5-3317U 1.7 GHz (2 cores) 5,770
Here is the link so you can read more about the test. BTW the test does not take advantage of the SSD drive.
http://www.primatelabs.com/blog/2012/06/macbook-air-pro-benchmarks/
If there are better benchmarks out there please let me know as I am also looking around for a new Mac.
13-inch Early 2010 Intel Core 2 Duo P8800 2.66 GHz (2 cores) 3,652
11-inch Mid 2012 Intel Core i5-3317U 1.7 GHz (2 cores) 5,770
Here is the link so you can read more about the test. BTW the test does not take advantage of the SSD drive.
http://www.primatelabs.com/blog/2012/06/macbook-air-pro-benchmarks/
If there are better benchmarks out there please let me know as I am also looking around for a new Mac.