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New MBA for 2012

post #1 of 7
11/29/11 at 4:14am
Thread Starter 
Anyone considering buying the new MBA coming in 2012? What would the advantages be also? Thanks marv
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post #2 of 7
11/29/11 at 12:07pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by marvfox View Post

Anyone considering buying the new MBA coming in 2012? What would the advantages be also? Thanks marv

Right now, the processors in the Air are downgraded to meet the thermal requirements. The 2012 CPUs from Intel are full performance chips that operate at reduced power levels. This means that you shouldn't notice nearly as much of a performance hit using an Air vs a Macbook Pro. Essentially, they are making them more like the Macbooks again in terms of performance.

I hope they will have upgraded SSD capacities (starting at 128GB) as well as USB 3 support.
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post #3 of 7
11/30/11 at 3:11am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvin View Post

Right now, the processors in the Air are downgraded to meet the thermal requirements. The 2012 CPUs from Intel are full performance chips that operate at reduced power levels. This means that you shouldn't notice nearly as much of a performance hit using an Air vs a Macbook Pro. Essentially, they are making them more like the Macbooks again in terms of performance.

I hope they will have upgraded SSD capacities (starting at 128GB) as well as USB 3 support.

I was referring to the MBA 2011 model by my post. Thanks
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post #4 of 7
11/30/11 at 12:22pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by marvfox View Post

I was referring to the MBA 2011 model by my post. Thanks

It's still a low voltage chip they use so is less powerful than the chip in the MBP:

http://browse.geekbench.ca/geekbench2/view/522534
http://browse.geekbench.ca/geekbench2/view/522749

Intel has a new agenda to design all their chips as low voltage without compromising performance. This should mean they would be able to fit chips that perform better than the current MBP into the thermal envelope of the Air so while the MBP upgrade will seem insignificant, the MBA upgrade would be much more of an improvement. It depends on a few things though, including Intel's ability to get the power draw down and if Apple wants to maintain a large divide between Air and Pro laptops.
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post #5 of 7
12/1/11 at 2:33am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvin View Post

It's still a low voltage chip they use so is less powerful than the chip in the MBP:

http://browse.geekbench.ca/geekbench2/view/522534
http://browse.geekbench.ca/geekbench2/view/522749

Intel has a new agenda to design all their chips as low voltage without compromising performance. This should mean they would be able to fit chips that perform better than the current MBP into the thermal envelope of the Air so while the MBP upgrade will seem insignificant, the MBA upgrade would be much more of an improvement. It depends on a few things though, including Intel's ability to get the power draw down and if Apple wants to maintain a large divide between Air and Pro laptops.

So this concept is really is in infancy still. Thanks
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post #6 of 7
6/27/12 at 10:34am

I have a 2012 MBA 13", 4GB RAM, 128 GB SSD and the performance is outstandingly fast.  The 2011 MBA is a slowpoke in comparison.  The new core i5 and i7 chips are of the Ivy Bridge variety, so they car run faster with less power.  The SSD has been upgraded to a faste variety and is now available up to 512 GB.  The RAM speed has been upped from 1333 to 1600 and the video card is now the Intel 4000 unit.  All in all, I think the 2012 is a great MBA, although the 2011 MBA was no sacker either.

TCAT
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TCAT
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post #7 of 7
6/29/12 at 4:21am
Thread Starter 

Good luck with this unit.
 

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