SHOOTOUT: 2013 MacBook Air
versus 2012 MacBook Air
Posted Friday, June 14th, 2013 by rob-ART morgan, mad scientist
The 'mid 2013' MacBook Air has some key enhancements over the 2012 MacBook Air. We quickly ran some benchmarks to highlight the differences. For perspective, we included the 2012 Retina 15" MacBook Pro (to represent the high-end Apple laptops).
STORAGE TESTS
GRAPHICS TESTS
CPU CRUNCHING
GRAPH LEGEND
2012 rMBP = 'Mid 2012' Retina 15" MacBook Pro 2.7GHz Quad-Core i7 with GT 650M
2013 MBA = 'mid 2013' MacBook Air 13" 1.7GHz Dual-Core i7 with Intel HD 5000
2012 MBA = 'Mid 2012' MacBook Air 13" 2.0GHz Dual-Core i7 with Intel HD 4000
Both MacBook Airs had 8GB of RAM. The rMBP had 16G. The 2012 MacBook Air had 256G of flash storage. The rMBP and 'mid 2013' MacBook Air had 512G flash storage.
INSIGHTS
The 2013 MacBook Air Flash Storage Screams.
The new flash storage "blade" is dramatically faster than the flash storage in both the 2012 MacBook Air and Retina MacBook Pro.
The 2013 MacBook Air's GPU is twice as fast as the 2012.
The Intel HD 5000 is a big improvement over the 2012 MacBook Air's Intel HD 4000. However, neither can compete with the Retina MacBook Pro's GeForce GT 650M with its dedicated 1G VRAM.
The 2013 MacBook Air's CPU is slightly faster than the 2012.
The difference may be slight but the 2013 MacBook Air's "Haswell" processor uses less power, thereby improving battery life. The memory speed is just as good as the Retina MacBook Pro, but the MacBook Air's dual core CPU can't compete with the quad cores of the rMBP.
More Speed Tests
For some "real world" speed tests, check out THIS PAGE.
