Air vs Retina Pro sustained performance

[tipoo]

So these two systems (in the base processor config of each) perform somewhat surprisingly close to each other, despite the low base clock of the Air it can turbo up to nearly the same speed as the turbo on the Pro. The GPU side is similar as well, both have 40EUs, one turbos to 1000MHz and the Pro to an insubstantially higher 1100MHz. Benchmarks reflect that one too.

What I'm curious about though is long term sustained performance, ie a heavy render, or some light gaming. Would the Air start to fall back and hit its base clock speed sooner, or can both pretty much always sutain turbo? Anyone find any testing on these long term uses?

My laptop is on its way out right now, I'm going to pick up one of these two very likely. Seeing how close they seemingly are complicates things for me, as the Air performs nearly the same, with higher battery life and less weight. Are they really so similar, or would the Pro pull away the longer you use it constantly?
(and yeah, I appreciate the retina screens a lot, but to be honest the Air looked pretty darn good in stores too[on the other hand it's also a shame downgrading from my current 1080p displays PPI]. I also know neither is that great for gaming or heavy use, but I just mean the odd game on the road).

The lack of Haswell MBP reviews from AT is killing me, I'm sure they'd figure this one out 🙄

 

[Zink]

Last time I checked I couldn't find any task where you should expect less than 90% CPU/GPU performance comparing 13" base model to base model with the originally launched CPUs. It depends on the exact clocks of the chips being compared. I didn't find any synthetic loads that throttled so it is unlikely there is a reasonable real world use case that throttles on the Air.

More info: http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=34158600&postcount=54

 

[alkemyst]

The Air and Pro are not really something you just want to put their CPU's head to head on.

 

[tipoo]

Last time I checked I couldn't find any task where you should expect less than 90% CPU/GPU performance comparing 13" base model to base model with the originally launched CPUs. It depends on the exact clocks of the chips being compared. I didn't find any synthetic loads that throttled so it is unlikely there is a reasonable real world use case that throttles on the Air.

More info: http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=34158600&postcount=54

Hmm, I think much of that would still apply in terms of throttling, though that was the Ivy Bridge generation you guys were talking about, right? From the picture of the 13" with two fans (the Haswell one has one) and I think the HD4000 was mentioned in there. The difference with Haswell might be slightly bigger after the mid-year clock bump, the Air went up a bit less than the Pro. Geekbench shows the Air at about 80% the Pro, or put another way the Pro is 125% as fast as the Air.


http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/search?utf8=✓&q=4278U

http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/search?utf8=✓&q=4260U

The GPU numbers still seem even closer than that though, both are 40EU parts with the same memory bandwidth, just one has a max speed of 1100 vs 1000 in the Air, tiny difference.

Gah, I think I'm trying to subconsciously justify the Retina but it looks like they still perform so damn close! The Retina screen is nice, but it also feels wrong knowing I paid for extra weight and less battery life too, for near identical performance.

The Air and Pro are not really something you just want to put their CPU's head to head on.

Go on?

 

[alkemyst]

Go on?

One laptop is designed for high battery life and light weight .

The other is designed for productivity and sacrifices battery life.

When both are just crunching numbers they are equals.

When both are just being used day to day, they differ majorly.

 

[tipoo]

One laptop is designed for high battery life and light weight .

The other is designed for productivity and sacrifices battery life.

When both are just crunching numbers they are equals.

When both are just being used day to day, they differ majorly.

Help me understand this? Are you saying they perform different in day to day tasks, despite being so close in benchmarks? Or just that one can get better battery life in casual use? I know that, if the latter. I was just curious about the performance part.

 

[alkemyst]

Help me understand this? Are you saying they perform different in day to day tasks, despite being so close in benchmarks? Or just that one can get better battery life in casual use? I know that, if the latter. I was just curious about the performance part.

If you look at the specs for battery life, the Air comes out on top. If you push that CPU into Turbo mode, that battery life would be just like the Pro.

If that is what you are doing, get the Pro and it's nicer screen.

CPU performance is not a good indicator of a mobile device.

What one needs to do is determine what they want out of a mobile device.

 

[Koing]

Battery life and weight = Air

Screen extra lightning port = rMBP

I went with the rMBP due to the screen and I was coming from a 2008 white macbook so anything would be lighter!

Koing

 

[n0x1ous]

get the pro - retina goodness cannot be overstated.

 

[tipoo]

Oh yeah, forgot about this thread. Decided to go all out on a 15" Retina - loving it! No more performance concerns about either the Air or the 13" now 😀

A T6500 to a 4770HQ is...Quite a difference, to say the least. Funny how fast a new computer will spoil you. While it was working, I was still ok with my old laptops performance, I thought it was plenty for web browsing (even with my adhd multitabbing), and the 1080p screen was good enough. Now it's like "was this screen always this grainy? Did the web browser always hiccup this much?", in just weeks with the new one.

The multicore score on Geekbench for the C2D T6500 is 2/3rds the score of a single core on the new one, and then times that by nearly four. Moores law is my favourite law.