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Newbie, purchasing Air, ques, i5 vs. i7
- Thread starter vazelos
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Epic Xbox Revie
macrumors 6502a
If you have to ask, the answer is probably no. Enjoy your MBA!
Beat me to the punch!
Beat me to the punch!
We can't give you an informed opinion of you don't give us anything to be informed about...
If you are going for the 11", i7 upgrade is a lot more noticeable as per Anandtech review.
The 13" i5 vs i7 is only about 10-15% increase in performance which is negligible.
The 13" i5 vs i7 is only about 10-15% increase in performance which is negligible.
...
plus to get the i7 in the 13" you have to get the expensive model...you have to get teh expensive 11" to get the i7 also but its not as big a deal since most people likely would opt for the expensive 11 anyway just due to the ram differance and storage differance (going from 64 to 128 is to me important, going from 128-256 is not)
plus to get the i7 in the 13" you have to get the expensive model...you have to get teh expensive 11" to get the i7 also but its not as big a deal since most people likely would opt for the expensive 11 anyway just due to the ram differance and storage differance (going from 64 to 128 is to me important, going from 128-256 is not)
Only negligible to people with the i5 😉
Anyways it's worth it to me cause having an i7 Air is epic sauce.
Tell me that again if you actually have the Quad Core i7 =]
Macbook Air 2011 with dual core i5 and dual core i7 is 10-15% difference. I will not notice it from what I plan to use my MBA for.
I have the 11" i7. That said, if I were going with the 13" model, I might have went with the i5.
To the OP, the thing to remember is that the 1.7GHz i5 actually operates at 2.4GHz most of the time, while the 1.8GHz i7 actually operates at 2.6GHz most of the time. By contrast, the 1.6GHz i5 operates at 2.0GHz most of the time. Newer Intel chips have what is known as "Turbo Boost," which lets the processor run at higher than its rated speed when it isn't being pushed to the limit. Because of the higher Turbo Boost speeds, the 1.7GHz i5 on the 13" is much closer to the i7 than the chip in the 11".
I was curious about this too, I have a 13 i7 pro right now. I use it with vmware, uploading pics from my nikon d90 to my website, ichat, Facebook, Skype, web surfing, iTunes, mail, and so on...so would an i5 13 pro with 256 be sufficient of i7?
Totally forgot about this thread ! 😀 My whole selection is now up in the air again, I was banking on a friend of a friend giving me her employee discount but it seems for some reason that can't be done... So now im back to square one. I was planning on going for the MBA 13" i7 256GB but now I might be looking at the MBA 13" or MBP 13" both base models.... I have to redo all the calcuations to see if it fits my budget, which is about $1600.
nebulos
macrumors 6502a
the base 13 MBA is an excellent machine well within your budget. as has been noted, the CPU upgrade in this case is not dramatic. the 1.7GHz i5 is a great CPU.
Concensus in all the threads I have reviewed is i5.
-Heat
-Battery Life
-Fan Noise
Few here would really know/experience the difference between i5 and i7.
-Heat
-Battery Life
-Fan Noise
Few here would really know/experience the difference between i5 and i7.
Battery Life is the same, its around 10-25% faster than the stock i5 (in the 11") it also gets warmer, i for one wouldn't play a graphics intensive game on my bare skin with it, but i doubt the i5 will be any better there ^^
I got it in my 11" because it makes me feel better! Lol
Couldn't justify ~300 more for the 256 upgrade thou so I had to BTO
Couldn't justify ~300 more for the 256 upgrade thou so I had to BTO
ZBoater
macrumors G3
I wouldn't characterize them as "problems" on either the i5 or i7. The i7 runs a few degrees hotter at idle, but in CPU-intensive tasks might actually run a little bit cooler since it won't be taxed as much. That said, the difference is negligible. The website AnandTech had a review with some data about a week ago.
If heating was an issue, rest assured the MBA would be freezing or turning off on its own. Hardware won't die because of heating that easily, there will be a lot of signs before anything serious happens.
This is probably how the MBA was designed to work, so don't worry about anything heat related. All laptops get hot at a certain section, totally normal.
This is probably how the MBA was designed to work, so don't worry about anything heat related. All laptops get hot at a certain section, totally normal.
For those of us who will never fill a 100 GB hard drive the upgrade is more like $400.00. I have no use for the 256GB hard drive, so if I wanted to get the i7 it would cost me almost 30% of the total price of the computer. Personally paying a 30% premium for a processor that is benchmarking at 8-9% faster is not a worthwhile investment. The better value is the i5 if you do not need the extra storage. You will lose less money on your purchase for a computer which performs almost every task, short of heavy coding or photo editing, on par with the i7 version.
Ultimately in a few years both the 2011 versions will look slow and knowing you paid closer to $1000 rather than $2000 will give you the feeling of having gotten the most bang for your dollar.
Ultimately in a few years both the 2011 versions will look slow and knowing you paid closer to $1000 rather than $2000 will give you the feeling of having gotten the most bang for your dollar.
I really like this post 🙂...
I have a question,
let's say I record some videos on a standard digital camera and want to make a little film to put on youtube.. does the mba i5 128gb have what it takes to get this done just as good as any other macbook?
Yes the mba i5 should have no issues. Don't know exactly what application you would be using, but you should not see any issues. These laptops really go beyond just email and web surfing. Which is why I particularly love this generation. They are well balanced in power and portability.
Now sure, I buy a MB Pro with a Radeon discrete graphics card, quad core processor, and play graphics heavy video games and applications the Airs would be playing catch up. But think about it is 20 seconds vs 30 seconds that bad? Or however the number play out. If the Pro is running an intensive application and it is beautifully accomplishing its task, then isn't it impressive the little Air with its built in graphics card and SSD drive is keeping up? For me....yes. For others...no.
I like my light as "Air" laptop. 🙂