SB i7 1.8ghz vs IB i5 1.7ghz for gaming?

[plucky duck]

The SB processor maxes out at 2.8ghz while the IB processor maxes out at 2.6ghz. Core for core which is faster for gaming and handbrake?

Is the gaming performance tilted toward the 2012 significantly due to hd4000 GPU? The hd4000 supposedly can be as much as 60% better than the hd3000, but in real life it doesn't appear to perform that much faster (NFS:HP and SF IV). Have yet to try Medal of Honor. This is on the 11" model I am speaking of.

Just wondering if I should stick with the 2011 model with twice the storage for the same price.

 

[asting]

The SB processor maxes out at 2.8ghz while the IB processor maxes out at 2.6ghz. Core for core which is faster for gaming and handbrake?

Is the gaming performance tilted toward the 2012 significantly due to hd4000 GPU? The hd4000 supposedly can be as much as 60% better than the hd3000, but in real life it doesn't appear to perform that much faster (NFS:HP and SF IV). Have yet to try Medal of Honor. This is on the 11" model I am speaking of.

Just wondering if I should stick with the 2011 model with twice the storage for the same price.

The 2012 is much faster in real life than the 2011. It is, as you said, largely due to the hd4000. The i5 in the 2012 is about as fast as the i7 in the 2011 in non gpu intensive tasks. If you plan on doing any gaming whatsoever do yourself a favor and get the new one.

 

[plucky duck]

The 2012 is much faster in real life than the 2011. It is, as you said, largely due to the hd4000. The i5 in the 2012 is about as fast as the i7 in the 2011 in non gpu intensive tasks. If you plan on doing any gaming whatsoever do yourself a favor and get the new one.

Thermals play a very important role at which speed the CPU is run. I was having issues with both the 2012 and 2011 11" Air slowdown and stutter after a few minutes of gameplay. Reason being was both were set down on my memory foam bed and heat had nowhere to go. The 13" 2012 Air suffered the same effect. Both 11" Airs were subjected to the same game tests, I've realised the 2012 palm rest area got much hotter than that of thw 2011 model.

Using SF4:AE's internal benchmark I was able to bench (stock game settings) 58FPS on the 2012 and 48FPS on the 2011. That 10FPS made a noticeable difference on gameplay, where one was passable and the other was a joy to play on. Same with NFS, ther was a notable improvement in smoothness of gameplay on the 2012 model.

Both the 2012 13" and 11" Air's use the HD4000, but because the 11" Air's native resolution is smaller than the 13" it obviously ran things better. On the 2012 13" Air NFS would still run a bit choppy at a certain track, whereas the 2012 11" handled it nicely.

Gaming and portability are both important to me, and seeing how the 11" performs better I have finally decided which one to keep. I want an ultraportable all along, and the 13" to me is portable but not ultraportable like the 11" one is.

 

[asting]

Thermals play a very important role at which speed the CPU is run. I was having issues with both the 2012 and 2011 11" Air slowdown and stutter after a few minutes of gameplay. Reason being was both were set down on my memory foam bed and heat had nowhere to go. The 13" 2012 Air suffered the same effect. Both 11" Airs were subjected to the same game tests, I've realised the 2012 palm rest area got much hotter than that of thw 2011 model.

Using SF4:AE's internal benchmark I was able to bench (stock game settings) 58FPS on the 2012 and 48FPS on the 2011. That 10FPS made a noticeable difference on gameplay, where one was passable and the other was a joy to play on. Same with NFS, ther was a notable improvement in smoothness of gameplay on the 2012 model.

Both the 2012 13" and 11" Air's use the HD4000, but because the 11" Air's native resolution is smaller than the 13" it obviously ran things better. On the 2012 13" Air NFS would still run a bit choppy at a certain track, whereas the 2012 11" handled it nicely.

Gaming and portability are both important to me, and seeing how the 11" performs better I have finally decided which one to keep. I want an ultraportable all along, and the 13" to me is portable but not ultraportable like the 11" one is.

More power to you. It's worth noting the games that matter to you are not typical results for most other games. There is usually a much larger difference. It's possible you were more ram/cpu limited than anything, which led to a smaller increase in performance.

At any rate, it seems you know what you're doing and are decently informed so I'm sure the 11" will serve you just fine.

If you want to maximize performance I hope you got the 8gb ram, as that will allow for additional memory to be allocated as vram.

 

[aleni]

intel HD 4000 is much faster than intel HD 3000, so get the 2012 version.

i have a 2012 11" air ultimate, and i just finished call of duty black ops in bootcamp.

btw i have to play it on low graphics, and enabled turbo boost in windows but using a program called throttle stop 5.0 beta 3.

it's very playable. even skyrim is playable on low graphics mode. i'm amazed by how intel managed to increase the performance with intel HD 4000.

the heat is anoying, you have to play it in an air cooled room.