rennoc99

Q: why is the macbook pro faster than mac air?

     okay, iv already purchased my 13" macbook pro, but I never did understand one rather imporatan thing about why I chose that mac.

I was struggling between the 13" macbook pro with i5 and 8GB RAM, or a 13" macbook air with i5 and 8GB RAM. What I found though was that the entire macbook air line up had the same processor speeds, clocking in at 1.3ghz basic and 2.6ghz turbo boost for the i5. while the pro line up veried on this spec, depending on if you had the retina model or not, even the slowest macbook pro used the i5 at 2.4ghz basic and 2.9ghz turbo boost.

    

     both of the processors are "fourth generation" intel i5's (or i7's for that matter) yet the pro line up uses them more efficentley somehow? I know that the "turbo boost" feature is really just the CPU being over clocked slightly making more tics poer secound to handle more information, so my first thought is that the air line up is just clocking the i5 at a much slower rate, but what would be the point of that?? it runs extreamly well on my pro without over heating at all. it gets slightly warm undeneath but nothing bad and it never strains my computer despite the fact that I use auto CAD, garageband and imove rather extensivley. so im curious, does anyone know why the i5's and i7s in the macbook pro line up are so much faster than the macbook air's? 

MacBook Pro, OS X Mavericks (10.9)

Posted on Jan 6, 2014 1:20 PM

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Q: why is the macbook pro faster than mac air?

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  • by a brody,Helpful

    a brody a brody Jan 6, 2014 6:19 PM in response to rennoc99
    Level 9 (66,865 points)
    Classic Mac OS
    Jan 6, 2014 6:19 PM in response to rennoc99

    GPU on Apple's Pro machines generally are faster, and many can operate in parallel.  The Air and the original MacBook shared at least half of GPU memory on the hard drive itself, which is slower than chips.

  • by hands4,Solvedanswer

    hands4 hands4 Jan 6, 2014 8:45 PM in response to rennoc99
    Level 4 (2,227 points)
    Jan 6, 2014 8:45 PM in response to rennoc99

    MBA, MBP, and rMBP Benchmarks:

     

    Overall speed is not a major differentiator among the MBA, MBP, and rMBP 13” models according to the standard benchmarks.

     

    The MBPs are not much faster than the MBA on the Geekbench 2 benchmarks.

    The high-end MBA and MBP processors are within 10% the speed of the high-end rMBP processor.

    The MBA and rMBP frames-per-second speed was almost equal on the Cinebench benchmark.

    The MBA was about 20 to 25% slower than the rMBP frames-per-second speed on the Unigine Heaven and Unigine Valley benchmarks.

     

    Mactracker-Geekbench 2 benchmarks:

     

    13” MacBook Air (Mid 2013) 1.3 GHz:                              5946          75%

    13” MacBook Air (Mid 2013) 1.7 GHz:                              7284          92%

     

    13” MacBook Pro (Mid 2012) 2.5 GHz:                              6690          85%

    13” MacBook Pro (Mid 2012) 2.9 GHz:                              7841          99%

     

    13” Retina MacBook Pro (Late 2013) 2.4 GHz:          7136          90%

    13” Retina MacBook Pro (Late 2013) 2.6 GHz:          7648          97%

    13” Retina MacBook Pro (Late 2013) 2.8 GHz:          7899          100%

     

    http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/11/how-to-choose-13-inch-macbook-air-vs-13-i nch-retina-macbook-pro/2/

    Cinebench R 15 GPU Test OSX 10.9.0 (Frames per Second)

     

    13” MacBook Air (Mid 2013) 1.7 GHz:                              22.9          103%

    13” Retina MacBook Pro (Late 2013) 2.4 GHz:          22.2          100%

     

    Unigine Heaven Benchmark 1440x900 (average frames per second)

     

    13” MacBook Air (Mid 2013) 1.7 GHz:                              4.0          73%

    13” Retina MacBook Pro (Late 2013) 2.4 GHz:          5.5          100%

     

    Unigine Valley Benchmark 1440x900 (average frames per second)

     

    13” MacBook Air (Mid 2013) 1.7 GHz:                              4.2          81%

    13” Retina MacBook Pro (Late 2013) 2.4 GHz:          5.2          100%

     

    P.S.  The 15” rMBP benchmark results were substantially faster: ~1.5x to 5x compared to the 13” MBA speeds.

    http://www.barefeats.com/mba13b.html