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Upgrade MacBook Air 2013 i5 to i7?
- Thread starter kuzzkuzz
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That was my theory too, unfortunately with light work it didn't last as long as the i5, I'm buying this laptop for battery life and portability.
On the MacWorld "movie" test (which is probably a pretty good simulation of the most taxing prolonged on-battery use I'd subject it to) the i7 battery underperformed by 2.2%. The Peacekeeper test, where the i7 was WAY behind is the kind of use where I'd almost certainly be plugged in. I'm not too concerned, but I understand why it would be a deal breaker for other users.
Yep, conclusion I finally came too, just ordered i7/8/256.
Worst case if i feel its a lot warmer than my wife's i5. I'll return it for an i5/8/256. But thinking i'm going to be happy.
The chart may have been updated but it now indicates that both a new i5 and i7 were compared.
I'm a total Mac newb but have extensive PC hardware experience so take my thoughts with a grain of salt...
The Macworld results make sense in that the i7 builds have very slightly less battery life (11 minutes in their test) under light/moderate use. But... when under load and using the upper speed range (above what the i5 supports) you will burn through the battery more quickly. The plus side that many have mentioned is you will complete the given task more quickly (assuming you are doing a fixed task and not a continuous operation as the Macworld test did).
Hope this helps
Hi,
I'm new here and very interrested as I intend to replace my Mid 2009 13" MBP by a Mid 2013 13" MBA
I'm quite sold to the 8Go option, and 256Go SSD, but not quite sure about the i5/i7 dilemna
I would like to share a few thoughts :
First, TDP is the same for both : 15W
Sure, but TDP is a max enveloppe, it's not guaranteed that neither actually reach such a consumption
A bit of math also tells us that 15W on a 55Wh battery gives 3h40, as there is not only a proc but a screen and a few other devices, so we can expect around 3h at max TDP
Secondly, turbo frequency 3.3GHz vs 2.6GHz, that's 27%
I don't think we can expect any kind of magic that would make the i7@3.3 having the same power consumption as the i5@2.6
They are basicaly the same chip, based on the same technology, so whatever the TDP might be on thes spec, if one runs 27% faster it will have a higher consumption over 27% as this is not linear so the fully loaded i7@3.3 might be maybe twice as hungry than the i5@2.6
Again this is only for the proc consumption, excluding screen, graphic processor which quite the same (10% difference) and others
On the whole, and these are gross estimations, I would expect something like 20W total consumption for a fully loaded i7 MBA and maybe 15W for an i5, which would translate into 2h45 and 3h40 battery life
Of course, the i7 would crunch much more numbers during the same time (maybe 20%, don't forget the extra cache), but you will always be losing in the end, meaning that you will have less work done in the battery lifetime with the i7 than with the i5. Of course, the difference will be lost in more heat, and fan noise.
That's about maximum load, let's say multithreaded video encoding
So if you want the job done as fast as possible, but don't care about more heat, more noise, and in the end doing less job on a battery charge, choose i7
If you don't care about 20% more delay, but appreciate less heat, less noise and more job done with a battery charge, choose i5
I'm new here and very interrested as I intend to replace my Mid 2009 13" MBP by a Mid 2013 13" MBA
I'm quite sold to the 8Go option, and 256Go SSD, but not quite sure about the i5/i7 dilemna
I would like to share a few thoughts :
First, TDP is the same for both : 15W
Sure, but TDP is a max enveloppe, it's not guaranteed that neither actually reach such a consumption
A bit of math also tells us that 15W on a 55Wh battery gives 3h40, as there is not only a proc but a screen and a few other devices, so we can expect around 3h at max TDP
Secondly, turbo frequency 3.3GHz vs 2.6GHz, that's 27%
I don't think we can expect any kind of magic that would make the i7@3.3 having the same power consumption as the i5@2.6
They are basicaly the same chip, based on the same technology, so whatever the TDP might be on thes spec, if one runs 27% faster it will have a higher consumption over 27% as this is not linear so the fully loaded i7@3.3 might be maybe twice as hungry than the i5@2.6
Again this is only for the proc consumption, excluding screen, graphic processor which quite the same (10% difference) and others
On the whole, and these are gross estimations, I would expect something like 20W total consumption for a fully loaded i7 MBA and maybe 15W for an i5, which would translate into 2h45 and 3h40 battery life
Of course, the i7 would crunch much more numbers during the same time (maybe 20%, don't forget the extra cache), but you will always be losing in the end, meaning that you will have less work done in the battery lifetime with the i7 than with the i5. Of course, the difference will be lost in more heat, and fan noise.
That's about maximum load, let's say multithreaded video encoding
So if you want the job done as fast as possible, but don't care about more heat, more noise, and in the end doing less job on a battery charge, choose i7
If you don't care about 20% more delay, but appreciate less heat, less noise and more job done with a battery charge, choose i5
Continued thoughts on the battery life
So previous post was about max proc load battery life
Of course, we don't use the proc at max load when browsing, editing text, listening to music or even watching video
So in these use cases, the frequency will be lowered, the load of the proc will be low and every thread will not be used
Here we know that the base "advertised" frequency of the chips are 1.3GHz and 1.7GHz, that's 31% difference
But what we don't know is the actual minimum speed of the chips, which might be the same for both (there is a 800MHz in the wikipedia Haswell page, don't know if it is true)
We also don't know how the frequency is ramped up versus processing demand in each proc. Are the laws used the same or is the i5 optimised for power saving and the i7 for performance. How huge is the difference if any
What I think is that 1.3GHz and 1.7GHz are just box speed, and don't really mean much. It would not be meaningful to try to calculate anything based on these figures
In my opinion (not based on much, of course), both procs should perform quite the same under minimal to medium load, and when ramping up to full load, the behavior should progressively move to what I described in my last post
One more thought : 12 hours out of a 55WH battery is 4.6W for the whole computer, I would not expect the proc to use more than 1W or 2W (maybe eve less) in such a case, which is incredibly low, 1/10th of the TDP. This means that Intel did a fantastic job and I would expect these optimisation to be the same for both i5 & i7
Thanks for your reading !
So previous post was about max proc load battery life
Of course, we don't use the proc at max load when browsing, editing text, listening to music or even watching video
So in these use cases, the frequency will be lowered, the load of the proc will be low and every thread will not be used
Here we know that the base "advertised" frequency of the chips are 1.3GHz and 1.7GHz, that's 31% difference
But what we don't know is the actual minimum speed of the chips, which might be the same for both (there is a 800MHz in the wikipedia Haswell page, don't know if it is true)
We also don't know how the frequency is ramped up versus processing demand in each proc. Are the laws used the same or is the i5 optimised for power saving and the i7 for performance. How huge is the difference if any
What I think is that 1.3GHz and 1.7GHz are just box speed, and don't really mean much. It would not be meaningful to try to calculate anything based on these figures
In my opinion (not based on much, of course), both procs should perform quite the same under minimal to medium load, and when ramping up to full load, the behavior should progressively move to what I described in my last post
One more thought : 12 hours out of a 55WH battery is 4.6W for the whole computer, I would not expect the proc to use more than 1W or 2W (maybe eve less) in such a case, which is incredibly low, 1/10th of the TDP. This means that Intel did a fantastic job and I would expect these optimisation to be the same for both i5 & i7
Thanks for your reading !
Third part of my thoughts
So I am quite confident that under low to medium load, the difference between i5 & i7 is very small (speaking of battery life, heat or fan noise)
Under full load, the difference in turbo speed (capped by the max TDP) is huge enough to make a significant difference
The problem is that you don't always control the load demand, as there might be some processes that demand huge power against you own will (crazy flash animations or video, indexing tasks, dropbox, ...)
In such a case, the i7 will deliver it's power at battery life, heat and fan noise cost while the i5 having less strength will remain more reasonable
What would be wonderful would be to have a setting to set a lower maximum power to the i7, comparable to the power of the i5 or even lower
That way, we could choose to favor autonomy or brute force
By the way, I should not tell this here, but under Windows, it is possible to set maximum and minimum proc speeds in the advanced power settings ! But as far as I know, there is no such thing in OSX
PS : sorry if my english is not always very good, but I'm french...
So I am quite confident that under low to medium load, the difference between i5 & i7 is very small (speaking of battery life, heat or fan noise)
Under full load, the difference in turbo speed (capped by the max TDP) is huge enough to make a significant difference
The problem is that you don't always control the load demand, as there might be some processes that demand huge power against you own will (crazy flash animations or video, indexing tasks, dropbox, ...)
In such a case, the i7 will deliver it's power at battery life, heat and fan noise cost while the i5 having less strength will remain more reasonable
What would be wonderful would be to have a setting to set a lower maximum power to the i7, comparable to the power of the i5 or even lower
That way, we could choose to favor autonomy or brute force
By the way, I should not tell this here, but under Windows, it is possible to set maximum and minimum proc speeds in the advanced power settings ! But as far as I know, there is no such thing in OSX
PS : sorry if my english is not always very good, but I'm french...
This is what was my final nudge to ordering the i7. (Ordered 11" i7/8/256 this afternoon.)
=========
MacWorld ( http://www.macworld.com/article/204...rs-best-battery-life-of-any-apple-laptop.html )
Battery Test Movie
13-inch MacBook Air/1.3GHz Core i5 (Mid 2013) 8 hours 18 mins
13-inch MacBook Air/1.7GHz Core i7 CTO (Mid 2013) 8 hours 7 mins
==========
To me this shows that when you aren't stressing the CPU out, the difference is pretty negligible between the chips.
Granted the other test (stress) shows a much bigger gap.
But it should, the i7 is more powerful.
For me, I'd rather have that extra power if I need it, than not.
My wife has an i5 11" base, so when my i7 comes ill just judge for myself.
But from what i've heard outside of 1 guy on this forum, the battery/heat isn't that much different.
=========
MacWorld ( http://www.macworld.com/article/204...rs-best-battery-life-of-any-apple-laptop.html )
Battery Test Movie
13-inch MacBook Air/1.3GHz Core i5 (Mid 2013) 8 hours 18 mins
13-inch MacBook Air/1.7GHz Core i7 CTO (Mid 2013) 8 hours 7 mins
==========
To me this shows that when you aren't stressing the CPU out, the difference is pretty negligible between the chips.
Granted the other test (stress) shows a much bigger gap.
But it should, the i7 is more powerful.
For me, I'd rather have that extra power if I need it, than not.
My wife has an i5 11" base, so when my i7 comes ill just judge for myself.
But from what i've heard outside of 1 guy on this forum, the battery/heat isn't that much different.
Now that the dust has settled, I'm glad I got the i7. It is cool to the touch as I surf now. My battery shows 16:20 remaining at the moment - it's gone up from 15:00 during the first 15 minutes of this first time away from the charger (running for last 24 hours on power cord). Of course I don't expect quite that, but it sure is entertaining just to look at that runtime on display 
Glen
Glen
Now that the dust has settled, I'm glad I got the i7. It is cool to the touch as I surf now. My battery shows 16:20 remaining at the moment - it's gone up from 15:00 during the first 15 minutes of this first time away from the charger (running for last 24 hours on power cord). Of course I don't expect quite that, but it sure is entertaining just to look at that runtime on display
Glen
If I was buying the 13" I will get the ultimate model or at least i7 as the 13" have 3 more hours of battery to play with but on the 11" is a different scenario...from the 9 advertised hours you will probably get 7-8 with normal use on the i5 and the i7 will make it slightly worse, I'm looking for a portable Mac with as much battery as possible and the base model is pretty fast for on the road use.
My I7 is also extremely cool to touch as I type this while laying in bed.. I had it on all day at work today on charger, with Safari, iTunes, and Parallels running and connected to a 28'' screen, and it hardly even got warm.
Been using laptop for past hour (a couple of file transfers, and casual browsing), currently at 12:57 on battery.
Been using laptop for past hour (a couple of file transfers, and casual browsing), currently at 12:57 on battery.
I believe the new baseline air gets a poorer geek bench score then last years base 1.7 lol
And how that will relate to everyday use?
It was for me, fan was spinning on normal tasks after a while, slow spinning but the noise was there.
Just a personal opinion, not recommending anything. People love the i7 and people love the i5
I have both (in fact 3 MBA now) and I'm just keeping the base model with 256ssd, next year I'll be upgrading again as probably the design will change a lot (2013 is the same design as 2012).
$1099 in Amazon, no tax and next year I'll be selling this for $800-$900 (or more) for the newest latest and greatest.
I think people worry too much, I just don't see myself spending $1849 for an "ultimate" 11" Macbook Air.
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I don't need the power the i7 provides it's just that i would want to use this Mac for a longer period than my last few Macs. Working for an APR i've had 5 Macs in the last 2 years. Now i'm going back to school and would like to use this Mac for the next 2-3 years. Since i won't be doing any heavy CPU tasks i will probably go for the i5.
Benchmarks between the two CPUs
I found the best review and benchmarks of the two processors on this site:
http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/86...5-4250U_vs_Intel_Core_i7_Mobile_i7-4650U.html
penncomputers.com
Hi guys, i have allready choosen to get the new macbook air 2013. I have choosen to upgrade the ram from 4 - 8.
I am now wondering if i should upgrade from i5 - i7 aswell
I will use the mac for school, small games(league of legends) and minor video.
I would like to have the computer for many years(3-4).
I found the best review and benchmarks of the two processors on this site:
http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/86...5-4250U_vs_Intel_Core_i7_Mobile_i7-4650U.html
penncomputers.com
I've always gone for the low end CPU ever since my first PlastBook which I could literally cook eggs on. You might get an i7 that is cool and quiet, or you might just get one from a "warm" batch, or Apple completely ****ed up the thermal paste as they often do. There is nothing I hate more than paying top dollar for a machine that gets uncomfortably warm or loud. I bought the first Unibody Macbook when it came out, and it actually reached 107 C. The repair shop could not find anything wrong and Apple said it was fine.
Will i7 make a difference if running Windows in Parallels? In Windows, I wouldn't be running any graphics intensive programs. Just don't want lag while running Parallels on either Windows or Mac. Thanks.