Mba 1.8

[ShrubbySoup]

Hi,
What's the 1.8 processor like compared to the 2.4 or 2.8 in the MBP, or any higher clock speed processor in general. My friends have told me that it utilises every part of the 1.8 and puts it to best use making it seem faster? I just don't know wether it will be fast enough for me.
Thanks Connor

 

[skubish]

Wirelessly posted

1.21 jigawatts

 

[TyroneShoes2]

It depends on your needs. I have a 1.7 i5 in mine and it is very snappy most of the time. The SSD makes everyday stuff feel snappy.

But the SSD and i5 will not make Photoshop or Aperture all that fast, because the bottleneck there is pure number-crunching. Omnigraffle saves are notoriously slow everywhere; it can take 6-7 seconds of spinning beach ball just to save an Omnigraffle document (of course that could take 4 times as long on my old PB).

If your needs are pro video editing, layout, anything CPU-intensive, you're better off with a faster processor, such as in a Mac Pro or a top of line MBP. If you want gen-purpose stuff, a MBP or MBA with a 1.7 or 1.8 will fill the bill. I think the i7 is not an economically-sound choice (too little bang for the buck) unless the software apps you will be targeting are written for it (most are not).

Regardless, plan on a SSD.

 

[falterego]

To follow what Shrubby said, I upgraded the SSD on my 13" mid-2010 C2D 2.66 MBP and it is just as snappy as my 13" mid 2011 i5 1.7 MBA. I'd imagine if you got a new MBP with an i5 or i7 and popped an SSD and memory upgrade (at least 8GB) inside it would smoke the MBA.

For price comparison...

13" MBA with the 1.8 GHz i7 upgrade - $1,699

or

13" MBP with the 2.7 GHZ i7 - $1,499
120GB Mercury Electra SSD - $146
8GB OWC memory ugprade - $55

Both end up the same price (Ok, the MBP is $1 more) but with the MBP you then have the original 4GB memory that you could sell, and more importantly the 750GB HDD that you could put into an enclosure and have an instant backup drive. The MBP will be a greater powerhouse, but will feel like it weighs a ton more.

For me the choice is simple, the MBA all the way, but then again I don't have a need for great power. Mostly Microsoft Office and remote management software. If you're doing graphic design or rendering the MBP would be a better plan if you need something portable. Otherwise you can build the same spec Mac Mini and get a sweet monitor for a few hundred bucks less.

 

[Boyd01]

I guess it depends on your frame of reference. I went from a 2008 2.4 ghz c2d 15" Macbook Pro to a new 13" i5 Macbook Air. Everything is dramatically faster on the MBA. CPU bound stuff is almost twice as fast, based on a few unscientific tests I did.

I can edit full HD Sony XDCAM EX video much more smoothly in FCP 6 on the MBA than I could on the 2008 MPB. In Photoshop, it depends. One of the filters I tried took dramatically less time on the MBA (it must have been reading/writing to disk) but other operations were similar. Where the MBA had a huge edge was in loading and saving photoshop files, and also in the time needed to start Photoshop itself.