Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

saintforlife

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Feb 25, 2011
1,046
329
Is the new 12" MacBook comparable to a 13" MBA in terms of performance? I am particularly interested in the HD video playback abilities of the MacBook - HD Youtube and Netflix. Will the new MacBook be able to handle long hours of video playback without thermal throttling and/or skipped frames? I am worried about this especially given the lack of a cooling fan on this model.
 
Hard to imagine that Apple would release a computer that couldn't just playback video. A bigger question is how will it perform at more intense tasks like ripping DVDs. My 2013 MBA rips a DVD in 15 minutes and the same DVD takes 75 minutes to rip on my 2008 MBP (core2 duo). But the fans start racing on the MBA when I do this kind of thing.

Will be interesting to see how the rMB handles this.
 
It can compare to the Ivy bridge macbook air for sure so it will be ok.
With haswell i think is the iGPU HD5000 is 30% better and the cpu probably 10% better

So this Macbook in performance is between 13" Macbook Air 2012 and the haswell one
 
Is the new 12" MacBook comparable to a 13" MBA in terms of performance? I am particularly interested in the HD video playback abilities of the MacBook - HD Youtube and Netflix. Will the new MacBook be able to handle long hours of video playback without thermal throttling and/or skipped frames? I am worried about this especially given the lack of a cooling fan on this model.

Performance will be a function of the CPU, the thermal management structure of the chassis and boards, and environment. So, I guess you will have to wait for some real world feedback from early adopters to get a good answer to your question. Synthetic benchmarks may not tell you the whole story - and it is up to you to decide whether you want to spend $1200+ without an answer.
 
Hd5300=Hd4000<hd5000<hd6000 this thing is for sure
Regardin cpu i think it can be near the haswell mba
 
Is the new 12" MacBook comparable to a 13" MBA in terms of performance? I am particularly interested in the HD video playback abilities of the MacBook - HD Youtube and Netflix. Will the new MacBook be able to handle long hours of video playback without thermal throttling and/or skipped frames? I am worried about this especially given the lack of a cooling fan on this model.

Video playback will be alright. It will be more efficient than the last gen macbook airs due to the integrated audio dsp.

In fact, apple has rated the macbook at 10 hours of video playback.
 
If an iPad air (2) can playback 1080p video with a tablet-class processor with no cooling fans, I'd imagine the rMB could do it without breaking sweat. The iPad's screen resolution is also very close to that of the rMB, so no one machine is at a disadvantage in terms of driving the display. Of course, the rMB's CPU is a full-blown processor that runs OS X rather than iOS, so I'd guess that it is in general a bit more powerful than the iPad's. I wouldn't worry that the rMB would struggle to play HD video. However for 4K content, I'm not so sure.
 
Thats for a single core, Multi core is 2.2Ghz by design.
M CPUs run at different speeds for the two workloads.

Will it be 100% accurate? We don't right now is the only truthful thing to say at this stage. But i still believe its a very good indicator.
 
Last edited:
It can compare to the Ivy bridge macbook air for sure so it will be ok.
With haswell i think is the iGPU HD5000 is 30% better and the cpu probably 10% better

So this Macbook in performance is between 13" Macbook Air 2012 and the haswell one

Looking at Geekbench multicore scores, the 2012 Air is faster than both Haswell Airs. I know Geekbench isn't the only indicator but I would be happy if the Core M was as fast as a Haswell Air. I'm sure the 1.3 GHz is faster than the 2013 base Air.
 
The Yoga 3 Pro has the same processor that can be configured in the new Macbook. And according to Anandtech's few benchmarks (See the System Performance charts), it should fare slightly slower than the 2014 MBA.

Good enough for me.
 
Will it be faster than my 2010 13" MacBook Air with a 1,86GHz Intel Core 2 Duo?
 
The Yoga 3 Pro has the same processor that can be configured in the new Macbook. And according to Anandtech's few benchmarks (See the System Performance charts), it should fare slightly slower than the 2014 MBA.

Good enough for me.

Odd, I saw a comparison elsewhere saying that it was comparable to a 2011 MBA. Is the 2011 MBA similar to the 2014 MPA?
 
I still think it's crazy that people are worried about whether or not the rMB can handle HD video!
 
Is the new 12" MacBook comparable to a 13" MBA in terms of performance? I am particularly interested in the HD video playback abilities of the MacBook - HD Youtube and Netflix. Will the new MacBook be able to handle long hours of video playback without thermal throttling and/or skipped frames? I am worried about this especially given the lack of a cooling fan on this model.

Get one and test drive it hard for 15 days. Bring it back if it doesn't meet your particular needs. For a lot of people, it will.
 
Performance will be a function of the CPU, the thermal management structure of the chassis and boards, and environment. So, I guess you will have to wait for some real world feedback from early adopters to get a good answer to your question. Synthetic benchmarks may not tell you the whole story - and it is up to you to decide whether you want to spend $1200+ without an answer.

+1. Agrees absolutely.
 
Will it be faster than my 2010 13" MacBook Air with a 1,86GHz Intel Core 2 Duo?

Yes the cpu is the only one on par with MBA 2011, the rest is even better
The Ram is faster and double the amount
The SSD is faster and standard 256
The trackpad is more functional and no more mechanical
The Gpu also better
 
Trust me, the Ram and GPU will make a visual differences between this and the 2010 MBA
You can't compare HD3000 with HD5300 and the 2gb Ram with 8 gb ram even within an app like VMWare which is ram hungry
 
Last edited:
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.