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You are here: MacNN Forums > Hardware - Troubleshooting and Discussion > Mac Notebooks > New MacBook Air: 11.6" $999, 13.3" $1299

New MacBook Air: 11.6" $999, 13.3" $1299 (Page 5)
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Eug  (op)
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Nov 14, 2010, 09:12 AM
 
Originally Posted by P View Post
Single-threaded performance is probably the one area where you'd have a chance, given the pecularities of the cache system, but in general...Anything threaded the i7 will crush you, anything disk performance the SSD will obliterate you, anything GPU-related... Yeah. Nowhere near. It would be interesting to see, though.

(I think that the SU4100 will clock up slightly when one core is idle, something like 200 MHz, so you technically have turbo. A tiny one, but still).
Link on SU4100's mini turbo?

BTW Passmark is 985 on Pentium SU4100. I couldn't find a passmark score on Core i7 680UM.

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_look...00+%40+1.30GHz
     
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Nov 14, 2010, 11:21 AM
 
It's called "Intel Dynamic Acceleration Technology" on Penryn-class CPUs, but it's the same as turbo. Intel doesn't specify if it is enabled on all SKUs. That link is wonderfully low on details, but more is available here. Basically a single core can clock up by one multiplier of the FSB. The FSB on that model is 200 MHz quadpumped.

Note that the second link is for the "full" Core 2. The SU4100 for some reason doesn't have a datasheet (none of the Penryn Pentiums do), so I can't know for certain if there's any turbo there. It does seem rather silly to segment based on a feature that you don't advertise, but hey, Intel has done crazy stuff before.
The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.
     
Eug  (op)
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Nov 18, 2010, 02:02 AM
 
Cinebench 11.529 Win 7 x64 and OS X:

Atom 330 / ION:
CPU - 0.50 pts
GPU - 3.71 fps

Pentium SU4100 / 4500MHD:
CPU - 0.76 pts
GPU - 0.71 fps <-- failed the first time, but worked the second time.

MacBook Pro C2D 2.26 GHz P8400 / NVIDIA 9400M:
CPU - 1.30 pts
GPU - 4.15 fps

P.S. Last time I ran Cinebench, it was version R10. Anyways, the CPU score then was 15345 for my Core i7 iMac, and 4802 for my 2.26 GHz C2D MacBook Pro. So, for multi-CPU, my Core i7 iMac is over 3X as fast as the MacBook Pro.

--

Video playback using some 1080p .mov QT H.264 files and 1080p .mkv x264 files.

Atom 330 - Cannot play back Quicktime 1080p. It's horrible.
Pentium SU4100 - Can play back Quicktime 1080p with light stuttering.
Core 2 Duo P8400 - Can play back Quicktime 1080p with no stuttering.

However, Quicktime on Windows has no GPU acceleration. On OS X, I believe QT has video acceleration with NVIDIA 9400M.

Atom 330 / ION:
- Usually works well with CCCP + WMP for 1080p H.264. < 50% CPU usage.
- Works very well with Splash Lite too. Accelerates with NVIDIA PureVideo. < 30% CPU usage and some clips work with no stuttering that stuttered with CCCP + WMP.
- Also works with CCCP + MPC-HC. Results similar to CCCP + WMP.

Pentium SU4100 / 4500 MHD:
- Cannot get CCCP + WMP to work for video acceleration so far, but some have. I don't know what I'm doing wrong. 100% CPU usage.
- Works very well with Splash Lite. Smooth as silk. Splash Lite accelerates with Intel ClearVideo. < 35% CPU usage.
- CCCP + MPC-HC works but inconsistently. Sometimes gets stuttering even at 30% CPU usage.
( Last edited by Eug; Nov 18, 2010 at 02:22 AM. )
     
Eug  (op)
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Nov 19, 2010, 12:15 AM
 
According Anand's review (and Apple's own specs), the 11.6" doesn't have that great of a battery life.

I have the 13" MacBook Pro, and one of my annoyances with it is that the battery life is merely decent, but not great.



Unfortunately, the 11.6" Air's battery life is no better, despite the fact that it has a CULV low-clocked chip. This is rather concerning. It would seem Apple really scrimped on the battery size on this one, for the sake of weight. Apple put a 35 Watt-hour battery in the 11.6" Air, and in retrospect I don't agree with that decision. Yeah, it's only 2.3 lbs, but having a battery life no better than my 2009 2.26 GHz 13" MacBook Pro is a disappointment. With this SU4100 11.6"windows machine I'm using now, I'm very impressed with its battery life. I've been using it all night long surfing with Flash and doing some H.264 and DivX video playback and I haven't even used half the battery yet... Yeah this laptop weighs 3.1 lbs, but that's partially because it comes with a 5600 mAh 11.1 V 63 watt-hour battery. That's an 80% larger battery.

The factor though is that the MacBook Air has NVIDIA graphics. That will suck more power, but that's all the more reason to include more battery power.

I'm now thinking I'm probably not going to buy an Air unless the battery life gets better, whether that be through a bigger battery, or through a lower power CPU/GPU. I know the battery life of the 13" is better, but I have no desire for a 13".
( Last edited by Eug; Nov 19, 2010 at 12:21 AM. )
     
Spheric Harlot
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Nov 19, 2010, 07:22 AM
 
Light / small / fast / long battery life.

Choose any three; when including "long battery life", choose two.
     
Eug  (op)
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Nov 19, 2010, 10:04 AM
 
Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot View Post
Light / small / fast / long battery life.

Choose any three; when including "long battery life", choose two.
Well, I guess it comes down Apple's decision as to what light and small is.

Even if they included say a 50 Watt-hour battery, it'd still probably be the smallest and lightest on the market. But instead they chose to go even smaller, at 35. That impacts the battery life significantly, esp. compared to the much cheaper competition out there that provides 63 Watt-hour batteries, but adding some weight.

As for fast, I'm not actually that concerned about that, and given that Apple provided us with a 1.4 GHz Core 2 Duo, it would seem Apple isn't either.
     
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Nov 24, 2010, 04:20 PM
 
Originally Posted by Eug View Post
I was quite perturbed by the screen hinge. Every time I moved the computer, the screen flopped back a bit. I thought it might just be that unit, so I checked the one next to it. Same thing. Of course, there are a bazillion people every day checking out the machine in the store, but the MBPs don't seem to suffer the same issue. Certainly my MBP doesn't feel like that.
Originally Posted by AKcrab View Post
The 11.6" Air we have on demo has a nice stiff hinge...

Of course it's brand new and barely used so far. This may be something to keep an eye on.
It seems I'm not the only one that noticed the 11.6" Air weak hinge.

The weakest link in the design is the hinge, which I feel is actually a bit looser than the hinges in other Apple notebooks. While the display is far from floppy, the hinge isn’t strong enough to keep the display from opening/closing more when faced with sudden movements of the notebook. Picking it up from a desk without closing the lid would sometimes cause the lid to tilt back . I didn’t have the problem of the lid auto closing due to gravity when I used the 11-inch Air while laying down, but I wouldn’t be too surprised if that developed over time. In the quest for weight savings sacrifices have to be made. While the rest of the construction is flawless, the hinge isn’t.
     
 
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