It depends if you use ur air as a secondary mac than there is no point of waiting because u dont need a strong processor. If that is your main and only computer, I suggest you should wait for sandy bridge maybe.
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Sandy Bridge Air vs. Ivy Bridge Air - Worth waiting for?
- Thread starter ghileman
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Dude seriously you need to calm down. This guy is speculating on a forum called Macrumors not Mac Gospel. Sheesh! Just ignore it if you don't like it.
I use mine as my only computer with no problems at all. I wish it had FW800 because USB is SOOOOOOO slooooow!
I literally had to log on just to comment on how ridiculous your post is. This is a FORUM for discussion. If you don't like the topic, simply don't read it. Period. The end.
I'm waiting until the 13" Macbook Air gets a quad core processor. When that happens -- whether it be Ivy Bridge or later -- I will feel like it's worth the upgrade from my current computer.
"Significant"? Really? Everything I've read says IB graphics will be about 20% faster than SB. Which is about as fast as SB is from Arrandale, is it not?
I love how we're now saying "Ivy Bridge will be the answer", after last year at this time cooing about how "Sandy Bridge will be the answer".
When IB gets here, there'll still be people whining about how IB isn't "faster than the 320m at X benchmark and I can still get 2 fps more with my 320m and C2D".
Some people will never be happy with Intel IGPs. The problem is this: with a thin-and-light like the MBA, there have to be some compromises. And the IGP is where Apple's gonna have to compromise at some point.
Hmmmm just read Anand's review on 2010 MBA. He says that, basically,
Furthermore,
In short, his review left me thinking that the present MBAs are too expensive for what they can do. Sure, if I had to pick one of the current MBA lineup, I'd pick the base 13" with 4GB RAM. Anything less would be a huge compromise for my needs.
If the market drops or soars 20% is it not significant? If you earn 20% less in 2011 than you did in 2010 is that not significant? Yes, I'd say 20% is quite significant actually.
VERY poor analogies. Even the slower computers today are plenty fast enough for most people. A 20% increase in speed for a computer is hardly noticeable in everyday use. Waiting for the next version simply based on speed is nonsense. Now if you're waiting because you need a new feature than that's a different story. A speed bump, even 20%, isn't worth waiting for.
If your everyday use included rendering movies and working with photos or large music files you'd certainly notice the 20% increase in speed.
But even if it didn't, 20% increase in speed is quite tangible.
If you have a car with 240PS, but you only need up to 150 does it matter then if you have 200 or 240? No, except if you are a car fan. Same with computers.
As for money: It DOES matter if you have 20% more income because its not a latent gain we are talking about then,...as opposed to a CPU speed gain which is very well mostly latent, especially since we are talking about MB Air here.
In general you are right, 20% can be quite substantial, but when you only need 50% power of 100% then it doesn't matter if you can have 120% too.
Obviously if you aren't going to use the extra power it won't be noticable. I don't see anyone arguing that. I'm not even suggesting that people should wait, merely pointing out the advantages that IB is going to bring. To wait or not to wait is going to be a personal choice. For people who want to fire up an ocassional game on the MBA, 20% can be substantial, allowing higher FPS or higher IQ at the same FPS.
My argument was that the SB IGP is already 20% faster than the Arrandale IGP. And people here are still complaining about the SB IGP. So if the IB IGP is 20% faster than SB, "significant" is in the eye of the beholder.
If LV SB can only score a 2500 on 3DMark06, and the 320m can score a 5200, then IB will only score a 3000 (2500*1.20) if it's "20% faster". I'd say that, at least IMHO, dropping from 5000 --> 2500 or dropping from 5000 --> 3000 isn't that significant.
You also mention Higher FPS, but the SB IGP gets such mediocre FPS to being with - 20% gain, IMHO doesn't become "significant". It doesn't even get one to "playable". For example: (and these figures are all pulled out of nowhere 'cause I can't find anything on the i5-2537's FPS gaming performance).
If, say one gets 14fps on COD with the SB LV IGP. 20% performance increase in IB would bump it up to ~17fps. Still unplayable, by many people's standards. This is why I say that (again, IMHO) it's not "significant".
Even if the SB IGP could hit 24fps ("playable")... Then the 20% increase would new you ~28.8fps. I guess that's "better"... but would the end-user notice a whole lot of difference with 4 more fps? I'm not a gamer, so I have no idea.
Again, this is all theoretical stuff we're talking about here. IB hasn't even been announced, there's no ship date, and there's no benchmarks. Just theory and speculation.
No-one seems to have an opinion on the OP's question #3 :
3. Heat: Sandy Bridge apparently runs hot (or at least the full-voltage chips do). Do low-voltage Sandy Bridge chips completely solve the heat/fan concerns for the Air? How big of a performance difference is there between Low-voltage and high-voltage Sandy Bridge? (Note: I have a Rev. B Air and if I'm going to upgrade one of my absolute requirements is that my next Air run A LOT cooler and much reduced fan action.)
This is the only one that interests me as a very very quiet MacBook is my primary objective.
That's why I'm waiting till the next version of MBA is out.
3. Heat: Sandy Bridge apparently runs hot (or at least the full-voltage chips do). Do low-voltage Sandy Bridge chips completely solve the heat/fan concerns for the Air? How big of a performance difference is there between Low-voltage and high-voltage Sandy Bridge? (Note: I have a Rev. B Air and if I'm going to upgrade one of my absolute requirements is that my next Air run A LOT cooler and much reduced fan action.)
This is the only one that interests me as a very very quiet MacBook is my primary objective.
That's why I'm waiting till the next version of MBA is out.
They exist. We just can't buy them. Apple isn't stupid, they're at least testing the things. They may decide, "eh...we'll forget the Air and just ride Core 2 duos" but saying they don't exist is dumb. Things exist that the general public never knows about. Like the iPad was created (i.e. existed, probably a lot different than it is now) in 2004....it was 2010 before we ever saw it.
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Ivy Bridge IGP will have 16 EUs which in raw numbers is 33% more than the 12 EUs found in Intel HD 3000. If the clock speeds stay the same, it could be around 30-40% faster than the SB IGP.
Arrandale IGP to SB IGP was more like a 100% jump.
I couldn't agree more. Some people make IB sound like it's something revolutionary, even though it is just 32nm to 22nm die shrink. I bet we all would prefer SB + NVIDIA IGP combo but I'm also sure that every one of us knows that it is impossible. Intel HD 3000 isn't great, especially in ULV/LV chips but I don't see many other options.
OS X does not support DirectX so DX10 vs DX11 is irrelevant.
Current lineup:
13": 17W SL9400/SL9600 + 12W 320M* = 29W
11": 10W SU9400/SU9600 + 12W 320M* = 22W
Sandy Bridge lineup:
13": 25W i7-2629M/i7-2649M + 3.9W HM65 = 28.9W
11": 17W i5-2537M/i7-2657M + 3.9W HM65 = 20.9W
*The actual TDP of 320M is not known but 9400M had TDP of 12W so I am using that as the TDP. Give or take a watt or two, it won't change anything.
Of course, one issue may be that the heat will be more concentrated on one spot. With current chip design, the heat is divided between two chips. With SB, most of the heat would come from the CPU since the PCH has only 3.9W TDP. However, the die size is also bigger so personally, I don't see this as a big issue. Apple can always improve the cooling by using e.g. better thermal paste.
It is impossible to say anything certain about the heat until the MBAs are out.
Reduced heat/power consumption should be possible from the die shrink, and the 20% increase in GPU power from SB to IB could be the difference that allows the IB version to achieve parity/slight improvement over the 320m.
I think SB is a pass as its not really much of an upgrade on the MBA for current owners, but IB might be worthwhile as an upgrade for some... especially if there's USB 3.0 support now that its in Intel's plans, and there will be more Thunderbolt options out by them too.
Anyone needing an MBA today can get one - don't see much reason to wait for SB other than Thunderbolt which is still too new to be of much use.
I recommend that you wait. Either until the best tech is announced, that cannot be topped, or until you can't wait any longer and you feel like you're going to explode if you don't buy it. If you buy whatever is out now, or coming soon, you will go into severe shock and/or depression when the new one comes out.
Usually the TDPs stay the same so Intel can increase the clock speed or add cores in order to improve the performance. SBs are 32nm and have higher TDP than the old 45nm C2Ds (though Northbridge and IGP have moved to the CPU but still).
The last order date for mobile C2Ds is April 29th, which is today. This means, if Apple isn't going to use SB, they must know how many MBAs they are going to sell during the next 10 months at least. The production of mobile C2Ds was ceased back in December so nearly 6 months ago. How many chips Intel has in their warehouses? IMO, it makes no sense for Apple to play the Russian Roulette and wait for IB. What if Apple runs out of C2Ds in November? That means they wouldn't be able to sell a single MBA for months. That does not sound like something that a multi-billion dollar company would do, especially when they have a good, viable option called Sandy Bridge.
Nothing stops Apple from using both, SB and IB. If Apple uses SB, it doesn't mean that they will be skipping IB, not at all.
Owners of current MBAs aren't the only market for MBA. Not every update has to be, or even can be worth upgrading. To be honest, I think the market of current owners is marginal compared to other Mac owners or PC users.
And anyone will still be able to get MBA when SB hits.
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/287?vs=54
Nearly 20W lower power consumption when idling. And that i7 is 95W while the C2D is 65W.
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I just hope the new MBA comes with Thunderbolt, a lighted keyboard, and runs as cool or cooler than it does now. Also, it would be nice if they could do this while increasing the CPU speed, making ram user upgradeable, and keeping the graphics as good or making them better. All of this in the same case design and I'd be sold on the 11 inch as my daily school/work computer. Come home and hook up to a 27inch ACD.