New Haswell MBAs: 1.3GHz is VM capable?

[GWestphal]

It looks like they are only available in 1.3GHz and 1.8GHz options.

The ivybridge models were these I think

1) Core i5 3427U - 1.8GHz, turbo to 2.6GHz - 2.8GHz at 17W TDP
2) Core i7 3667U - 2.0GHz, turbo to 3.0GHZ - 3.2GHz at 17W TDP

But IPC from Ivy to Haswell hasn't increased that much, so the 1.3GHz seems like it will have significantly less horsepower. Maybe only for mobile browsing and videos, you think a VM would run unhindered on there?

Also is this 12 hr battery with 10.8 or was the testing done with 10.9 and all the energy saving features? I hope the former, because then 10.9 could extend the battery life to 14-16 hours, which would be super.

 

[Kaido]

They have VT-x, so sure:

http://ark.intel.com/products/64903/

The biggest benefit I've seen in my virtual machines is running them off an SSD, so having a dual-core chip (with hyperthreading) & a built-in SSD with at least 4 gigs of RAM sounds plenty. Of course, it depends on what you want to do in the VM, but if you throw a core or two and a couple gigs of RAM at it, it should be okay.

 

[Essence_of_War]

But IPC from Ivy to Haswell hasn't increased that much, so the 1.3GHz seems like it will have significantly less horsepower. Maybe only for mobile browsing and videos, you think a VM would run unhindered on there?

The base clocks are lower, but the max turbos are unchanged. In practice, the air is going to hit its turbo targets pretty reliable. Did you look at Anand's piece on this:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7058/2013-macbook-air-pcie-ssd-and-haswell-ult-inside

In single threaded cinebench, the Ivy/Haswell i5s are indistinguishable. In multi-thread cinebench there is maybe a 5% victory for Ivy.

Basically, don't pay too much attention to the base clock.

 

[GWestphal]

Oh ok, it will be probably 90% surf and turf browser based stuff and 10% VM for office and some matlab.

 

[TheStu]

Oh ok, it will be probably 90% surf and turf browser based stuff and 10% VM for office and some matlab.

I used to do that sort of thing on my OG Core Duo MacBook, and according to Anand's quick take, the 1.3GHz Haswell is about the same as the 1.8GHz Ivy Bridge.

 

[smackababy]

Basically, don't pay too much attention to the base clock.

I thought this was common knowledge since Intel Conroe'd the gigahertz wars.

 

[Kaido]

Oh ok, it will be probably 90% surf and turf browser based stuff and 10% VM for office and some matlab.

What OS? I keep an XP VM handy for general surf (with snapshots for backup) and it's pretty low-maintenance. If you save your stuff to a shared file, you can just revert it to your base snapshot every time and not have to add antivirus etc. since it just boots from the snapshot image. So like half a gig of RAM, XP, and one CPU core & you're good to go!

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

I thought this was common knowledge since Intel Conroe'd the gigahertz wars.

Well that was comparing the P4 and C2D which have two different architectures. We expect the whole Core architecture moving from Nehalem to SB to IB to Haswell to be similar except with improvements each round. Thus it makes sense to compare the clock speed.

So if IPC gains were minimal, if they were capped at the base speeds, the IB might be a better choice. The trick here is that you have turbo at play, and that makes it more difficult to use clock speed alone unless you understand both base and turbo clock speeds.

 

[sxr7171]

The base clocks are lower, but the max turbos are unchanged. In practice, the air is going to hit its turbo targets pretty reliable. Did you look at Anand's piece on this:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7058/2013-macbook-air-pcie-ssd-and-haswell-ult-inside

In single threaded cinebench, the Ivy/Haswell i5s are indistinguishable. In multi-thread cinebench there is maybe a 5% victory for Ivy.

Basically, don't pay too much attention to the base clock.

Fair enough but why is it getting beaten slightly by last year's model? Same turbo speed and increased IPC would mean it should be slightly faster I would guess. Where is the loss?



On another note I think the $150 up charge for the i7 @ is the lowest they've charged for a CPU upgrade on the Air.

 

[narreth]

Do you think the 1.3 Ghz ULV haswell processor will be faster than the 2.26 Core 2 Duo from a 2009 macbook pro? I could not find benchmarks comparing these two online...

 

[joshhedge]

Do you think the 1.3 Ghz ULV haswell processor will be faster than the 2.26 Core 2 Duo from a 2009 macbook pro? I could not find benchmarks comparing these two online...

Looking at the geek bench scores - http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench2/search?q=MacBookAir6

1.3GHz i5 gets around 5500-6000 for 32bit.

http://browser.primatelabs.com/geek...ntel Core 2 Duo P8400" frequency:2260 bits:32

The Air smashes it by almost double the score.