The 2013 MacBook Air: Core i5-4250U vs. Core i7-4650U
by Anand Lal Shimpi on July 4, 2013 8:00 AM ESTBoot Performance
Although boot performance doesn't change substantially with the faster CPU, I did notice that the new system was posting better boot times than what I had previously recorded. My guess is all of my SSD torturing hadn't been TRIMed away before I presented the previous results. Either way the new MBA seems capable of a sub-12 second boot time. I even recorded some boots as low as 10.8 seconds. That PCIe SSD comes in handy for sure.
Single Threaded FP & 3D Rendering Performance
These next two charts look at single and multithreaded floating point performance using Cinebench 11.5. This test also gives us the rare opportunity of comparing to some older Mac Pro hardware as well from 2008 - 2010. Single threaded performance remains extremely important to overall system responsiveness, so it's always good to look at.
Oh man, the Core i7 upgraded seriously fixes everything. We get near perfect scaling here, showing a massive 27% increase in performance over the default Core i5 1.3GHz setup. The single threaded performance of the upgraded 13-inch MacBook Air is almost able to equal that of the 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display. Anyone underwhelmed by Haswell should keep this in mind. What we're seeing here is a combination of IPC improvements and awesomely aggressive turbo, all within a 15W TDP.
The multithreaded story is a bit less impressive, but still quite good. Showing a 17% increase in performance, the 1.7GHz Core i7 delivers nearly the same performance as the 2GHz Core i7 upgrade from last year's MBA. The rMBP15 distances itself from the MacBook Air though - there's no replacement for more cores.
Video Transcoding Performance
Video transcoding is really best suited for the higher end machines, but that doesn't change the fact that it's done on MacBook Airs as well. We'll start by looking at performance under iMovie. Here we're importing 1080p video from a Nikon D7000 and optimizing it during import.
We're showing ~25% reductions in import and export time here over the base configuration. In both cases, performance equivalency with last year's upgraded configuration seems restored.
Final Cut Pro X falls on the professional end of the video production spectrum. The test file is the same here, but the workload is far more strenuous.
The same is true for our FCPX test. Last year's 2.0GHz model is about 5% quicker than this year's 1.7GHz Haswell ULT system, but obviously with the newer machine you get much better battery life. The improvement over the base CPU configuration is over 20% again.
Photo Editing & Export Performance
Our photo editing & export tests agree with what we've seen elsewhere. The gains here are north of 20% and put the i7 system within range of last year's 2GHz model.
Xcode Performance
In our desktop review of Haswell I noted that performance in our compile test improved tremendously with the new architecture. As it's quite obvious that Haswell's IPC advantages don't surface all that much in our traditional suite, I wanted to see if perhaps things would be different in something that might lend itself better to Haswell's IPC improvements. I repeated our Firefox build test but under OS X. It's a multithreaded compile, with the number of threads set to 2x the number of cores (not threads) in a system.
When Haswell's IPC advantage can shine, the higher clocked configuration does even more so. Here the 1.7GHz Core i7-4650U is over 20% faster than the fastest MacBook Air you could build last year. Serious developers will still want more cores but if you need ultimate portability, Haswell ULT really can shine.
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GotThumbs - Monday, July 8, 2013 - link
@dsumanik: I feel your frustration and can see what your point is about. I've actually been coming to AnandTech since Anand was in HighSchool. I also have been disappointed in what I perceive as "Marketing spin" type reviews.Other than swapping in an updated CPU's and SSD's, what's the REAL effort/innovation for the 2013 line? Not much, but yet how many articles have been written and what is the overall feeling of each of those "reviews"?
I've gotten to the point where I actually find it funny/amusing that so much "pomp and circumstance" has been put into recent Apple articles. When people ask me why I don't have an Iproduct, they are totally amazed when I tell them I'd never want an IProduct. I understand it goes against the common thinkers, but I'm not a follower and I choose to avoid systems where I'm not in contol. It's my choice and I respect others decision to chose what they want.
As far at Anand's recent "Reviews", (no disrespect to Anand as an individual), but It's like a car salesman spinning the minor differences between the new years models and last years. "Less powerful engine, but hey you don't really need/want that"
At the end of the day, everyone has their own choice to make and while I'll never own an Apple product, its due to the overpriced and closed ecosystem Apple's created. When you're (Apple) pushing a cult like community...they (Fanbois) willingly follow blindly IMO.
You can try to explain your point forever.....but you must realize they will never even consider your point. It' would be akin to treason for them to even acknowledge your point of view.
Best wishes to all and enjoy your choices,
amdwilliam1985 - Monday, July 8, 2013 - link
"...I choose to avoid systems where I'm not in contol."Kind of wish I've read your comment 2 years earlier. I've got the 2011 13" MBA, although the overall machine feels good, somehow I can never shake the feeling that it's Steve J's labtop and I'm not "in control" of it. I use my MBA as a glorifying web browsing machine and for everything else, I go to my windows 7 machine :)
For the same reason(iTunes), I've dumped my beloved 3gs for Galaxy S2 and S3.
I'm probably one of the few control freaks who needs to know that I'm in control of my pc/phone, instead of someone else.
TheinsanegamerN - Thursday, July 4, 2013 - link
two things. A. 1366x768 if just fine for a 11 inch screen. 1440x900 is great for a 13 inch screen, and i wish more oems would use 16:10 screens.B. why would apple change a design that works? getting 12 hours of battery life, or close too it, is downright amazing for a machine this size. although, id love to see what would happen if they took current tech and put it in an older design mac, the battery life would be epic. soo much battery.
Spoony - Tuesday, July 9, 2013 - link
No, those resolutions are not fine. Of course people want 2880x1800 on their 13" notebook. Of course they want 2560x1600 on their 11" notebook. However, the MBA is an ultra-mobile platform meaning battery life and size take priority over other traits. High DPI displays have a considerable power cost, and apparently Apple felt that trading off display resolution for battery life was the right call in this situation. At some point you just can't beat physics and you have to compromise.If you don't agree, don't buy their product. I'm not sure I agree, so I bought something else.
kleos44 - Friday, July 12, 2013 - link
I am tired of hearing this argument. Throwing out statements like "you just can't beat physics" is wrong. Educate yourself on the physics of IGZO displays. Significantly higher resolutions AND LESS power draw than traditional display technologies. Every high end laptop is going to use them this year including pretty much every other Apple product.TheeGooch - Thursday, November 28, 2013 - link
Well said. I've slowly went from anti-Apple to being a fan over the last 7 years. 2014 will be when I buy my first Apple computer because the stability, quality, and ecosystem that comes with Apple products. The design choices they make to balance price, functionality, and quality just jive with my own idea of how those should be balanced. It's weird to think back to when I hated all things Apple on principle. Once I got my 1st Apple product( the ipod) , that began to change.ESC2000 - Monday, August 12, 2013 - link
It is not fine when it is on a $1,000+ computer. That is a premium price, and the display, with its low resolution and TN panel, belongs on a low end machine. Apple always does this: either the device is way overpriced or some feature is skimped on.There is no reason that this machine, with its poor display and processing sometimes shower than last year's version, should cost as much or more than a similar windows machine even though apple does not have to pay for a software license. All that money is just going to apple's bottom line. I never understand when prior brag about how apple is the most profitable: all that means is you are being overcharged.
zh.aung - Friday, July 5, 2013 - link
If you hate apples, go and eat oranges. Don't waste your time writing this junk.KoolAidMan1 - Friday, July 5, 2013 - link
Haha, how much angry spittle is on your monitor right now?Funniest post I've read in a LONG time, thanks for the laughs
robco - Friday, July 5, 2013 - link
If you're going to say pay back's a bitch, note the apostrophe. It is a contraction for payback is a bitch. Nobody will take you seriously if you can't even write a coherent sentence.As noted in the review, performance is on par with the previous generation, but with substantially better battery life. For many users, this is a huge bonus. For those wanting more performance, the i7 upgrade is reasonable, and will not adversely impact battery life to a great degree.
Apple's design has been copied, unsuccessfully, by several other manufacturers. The MBA remains one of the few ultrabooks to have a decent display, keyboard, and touchpad.
Plenty of other ultrabooks lack a celluar modem. There isn't a lot of free space.
The CEO of Apple is Tim Cook. Do a little research.
The next version of OS X, which purchasers of the MBA will receive gratis, may in fact fix some of the issues. Of course, you could look at the review of the Razer Blade, a new gaming Windows laptop that comes with neither 802.11ac or the ability to add gig-E, something the MBA can do by virtue of its (correctly leaving out the apostrophe here as it's possessive and not a contraction) Thunderbolt port.
So yes, the fact remains that the MBA has great battery life, fast networking, a good (admittedly not great) display, solid keyboard, and great touchpad. OS X continues to provide far superior battery life than Windows. If you must pollute the internet with this sort of screed, learn to write properly and do you research.