Will this be okay for me?

[Pitusky]

Hello,I am going to buy a new Macbook Air 13 inch and I am going to be playing occasional games like Minecraft,and SimCity and I will sometimes (rarely) use Final Cut Pro,iMovie and Garage Band,Will these specs be enough for me:

Macbook Air 13 inch
256gb SSD
8gb RAM
i7 processor

Thanks,and please reply to this post.

 

[na1577]

I have the 2012 Air with the standard configuration (4 GB RAM/i5). SimCity is playable and I have no problems using Garageband. Since the 2013 Air is even faster, you should have no problem running these programs. Video editing is very demanding on the system and you're not gonna get spectacular results on any Air model, but light editing is ok. The i7 upgrade should give you a reasonable boost.

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

With those major apps I would pop 16Gb ram in it.

 

[Pitusky]

I have the 2012 Air with the standard configuration (4 GB RAM/i5). SimCity is playable and I have no problems using Garageband. Since the 2013 Air is even faster, you should have no problem running these programs. Video editing is very demanding on the system and you're not gonna get spectacular results on any Air model, but light editing is ok. The i7 upgrade should give you a reasonable boost.

I think I'm going to go for the configuration I said,how is the battery life difference in the i7 and i5?

----------

With those major apps I would pop 16Gb ram in it.

Thanks but Apple doesn't provide 16gb RAM for Macbook Air.

 

[iizmoo]

Got identical config. Simcity work pretty well on low, but I can detect some slight sluggishness, not enough to stop my city from growing to 300K, but the graphic settings tend to be on the low end. WoW get 45 frames on medium, a little better there, Starcraft 2 has to kinda be on low as well, but playable.

I would view it more as a work machine that's capable of some occasional gaming, if you can survive low graphic texture and shadow settings. It does feel like coming in at the shallow end of gaming support, so I don't expect it to be able to handle newer games in another year or so very well at all.

 

[Pitusky]

Got identical config. Simcity work pretty well on low, but I can detect some slight sluggishness, not enough to stop my city from growing to 300K, but the graphic settings tend to be on the low end. WoW get 45 frames on medium, a little better there, Starcraft 2 has to kinda be on low as well, but playable.

I would view it more as a work machine that's capable of some occasional gaming, if you can survive low graphic texture and shadow settings. It does feel like coming in at the shallow end of gaming support, so I don't expect it to be able to handle newer games in another year or so very well at all.

Thanks,I'm totally getting the MBA since I'm not going to be playing a lot of games only simple games,word processors and ocasionally slight 5 minute video editing.

 

[Meister]

With those major apps I would pop 16Gb ram in it.

And there we are turning this into a ram thread again

None of the apps require much ram.
Video rendering highly depends on CPU and the macbook air only comes with a dual core.
You will see absolutely no difference editing with 8gb or 16gb.

I can also not recommend any macbook for gaming. MacBooks are just not made for that.

----------

The i7 upgrade should give you a reasonable boost.

Yes! Get the i7 for better editing.
In theory you would be fine with the base config but if you got the cash your upgrades are very nice, too.

 

[Boyd01]

I am still running my old version of FCP (6.x) and it works fine on my 2013 i7/8gb/512gb MBA. But it also ran fine on my 2011 i5/4gb/256gb MBA. The only noticeable difference is faster rendering on the 2013 model. I was using a 2008 15" MBP c2d 2.4ghz/4gb machine before getting the 2011 MBA. It was a HUGE upgrade from the old MBP.

Sorry, the last time I played SimCity it was 1995 and I was using a PowerBook Duo.

 

[Pitusky]

I am still running my old version of FCP (6.x) and it works fine on my 2013 i7/8gb/512gb MBA. But it also ran fine on my 2011 i5/4gb/256gb MBA. The only noticeable difference is faster rendering on the 2013 model. I was using a 2008 15" MBP c2d 2.4ghz/4gb machine before getting the 2011 MBA. It was a HUGE upgrade from the old MBP.

Sorry, the last time I played SimCity it was 1995 and I was using a PowerBook Duo.

Thanks,I definitely want the i7 processor since I don't mind a little less battery.

 

[Pitusky]

And there we are turning this into a ram thread again

None of the apps require much ram.
Video rendering highly depends on CPU and the macbook air only comes with a dual core.
You will see absolutely no difference editing with 8gb or 16gb.

I can also not recommend any macbook for gaming. MacBooks are just not made for that.

----------


Yes! Get the i7 for better editing.
In theory you would be fine with the base config but if you got the cash your upgrades are very nice, too.

Thanks I will get the MBA i7 with 8gb ram since its always nice to have an extra RAM sitting there when you need it and the i7 for the ocassional editing.

 

[ItHurtsWhenIP]

Thanks,I definitely want the i7 processor since I don't mind a little less battery.

I'm on the exact same config (i7/8/256) and right now have 89% battery with 14.5 hours remaining. I think the battery life is ok..

 

[alphaod]

It will run the apps you describe, but not sure how heavy you use those apps.

If it's heavy perhaps you need a rMBP instead.

 

[na1577]

I think I'm going to go for the configuration I said,how is the battery life difference in the i7 and i5?

I don't own the i7 model so I wouldn't be able to tell you for sure. On the 2012 model, the difference was only tens of minutes on average.

 

[mvmanolov]

i'd say more than enough!