First benchmarks: MacBook Air is the slowest Apple machine on the block
By Ryan Block 
posted January 24th 2008 5:43PM
posted January 24th 2008 5:43PM
- All machines tested with Xbench 1.3. Sorry, we didn't have a Mac Pro around.
- All machines tested were using Leopard (except the MBP in the center). Also, MacBook uses 1GB RAM.
- You can check the bold Xbench scores to compare the cumulative results for each test.
| Air (1.6GHz Core 2 Duo) | MBP (2.16GHz Core Duo) | MBP (2.2GHz Core 2 Duo, Tiger) | MacBook (2.2GHz Core 2 Duo) | iMac (2.4GHz Core 2 Duo) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CPU | 79.98 | 90.06 | 112.93 | 126.66 | 138.58 |
| GCD Loop | 9.67 Mops/s | 14.89 Mops/s | 13.17 Mops/s | 13.43 Mops/s | 14.91 Mops/s |
| Floating Point Basic | 2.03 Gflop/s | 2.34 Gflop/s | 2.96 Gflop/s | 2.95 Gflop/s | 3.23 Gflop/s |
| vecLib FFT | 1.71 Gflop/s | 1.68 Gflop/s | 2.98 Gflop/s | 3.36 Gflop/s | 3.66 Gflop/s |
| Floating Point Library | 12.82 Mops/s | 15.78 Mops/s | 14.15 Mops/s | 17.80 Mops/s | 19.43 Mops/s |
| Thread Test | 148.81 | 185.75 | 219.18 | 186.4 | 208.77 |
| Computation | 2.77 Mops/s | 3.36 Mops/s | 4.04 Mops/s | 3.58 Mops/s | 3.56 Mops/s |
| Lock Contention | 7.04 Mlocks/s | 9.07 Mlocks/s | 10.47 Mlocks/s | 8.48 Mlocks/s | 11.06 Mlocks/s |
| Air (1.6GHz Core 2 Duo) | MBP (2.16GHz Core Duo) | MBP (2.2GHz Core 2 Duo, Tiger) | MacBook (2.2GHz Core 2 Duo) | iMac (2.4GHz) | |
| Memory Test | 140.42 | 129.56 | 137.1 | 150.23 | 150.82 |
| System | 143.51 | 139.25 | 126.92 | 158.95 | 151.56 |
| Allocate | 718.86 Kalloc/s | 731.25 Kalloc/s | 401.22 Kalloc/s | 856.78 Kalloc/s | 657.80 Kalloc/s |
| Fill | 5770.30 MB/s | 5565.31 MB/s | 6490.47 MB/s | 6480.99 MB/s | 6606.88 MB/s |
| Copy | 2802.78 MB/s | 2652.96 MB/s | 2954.03 MB/s | 2914.92 MB/s | 3014.12 MB/s |
| Stream | 137.46 | 121.14 | 149.05 | 142.41 | 150.08 |
| Copy | 2621.64 MB/s | 2400.99 MB/s | 2923.94 MB/s | 2799.64 MB/s | 2926.68 MB/s |
| Scale | 2602.03 MB/s | 2412.90 MB/s | 2918.16 MB/s | 2797.66 MB/s | 3022.24 MB/s |
| Add | 3230.58 MB/s | 2703.93 MB/s | 3359.19 MB/s | 3196.17 MB/s | 3364.41 MB/s |
| Triad | 3199.37 MB/s | 2681.42 MB/s | 3368.41 MB/s | 3211.97 MB/s | 3328.48 MB/s |
| Air (1.6GHz Core 2 Duo) | MBP (2.16GHz Core Duo) | MBP (2.2GHz Core 2 Duo, Tiger) | MacBook (2.2GHz Core 2 Duo) | iMac (2.4GHz) | |
| Quartz Graphics Test | 96.89 | 144.23 | 141.5 | 154.32 | 193.4 |
| Line | 6.94 Klines/s | 8.84 Klines/s | 9.23 Klines/s | 9.69 Klines/s | 11.64 Klines/s |
| Rectangle | 32.23 Krects/s | 49.67 Krects/s | 51.59 Krects/s | 51.66 Krects/s | 70.02 Krects/s |
| Circle | 7.22 Kcircles/s | 11.31 Kcircles/s | 13.30 Kcircles/s | 11.54 Kcircles/s | 15.29 Kcircles/s |
| Bezier | 2.49 Kbeziers/s | 3.58 Kbeziers/s | 3.71 Kbeziers/s | 3.79 Kbeziers/s | 4.51 Kbeziers/s |
| Text | 5.53 Kchars/s | 9.12 Kchars/s | 6.65 Kchars/s | 10.39 Kchars/s | 12.66 Kchars/s |
| OpenGL Graphics Test | 17.26 | 175.06 | 129.88 | 23.36 | 152.66 |
| Spinning Squares | 21.89 frames/s | 222.08 frames/s | 164.76 frames/s | 29.64 frames/s | 193.65 frames/s |
| User Interface Test | 105.81 | 217.79 | 303.98 | 244.28 | 335.18 |
| Elements | 485.60 refresh/s | 999.54 refresh/s | 1.40 Krefresh/s | 1.12 Krefresh/s | 1.54 Krefresh/s |
| Air (1.6GHz Core 2 Duo) | MBP (2.16GHz Core Duo) | MBP (2.2GHz Core 2 Duo, Tiger) | MacBook (2.2GHz Core 2 Duo) | iMac (2.4GHz) | |
| Disk Test | 24.05 | 27.59 | 38.13 | 39.64 | 80.72 |
| Sequential | 42.21 | 49.22 | 59.81 | 66.07 | 115.15 |
| Uncached Write | 30.96 MB/s [4K blocks] | 31.32 MB/s [4K blocks] | 42.60 MB/s [4K blocks] | 53.34 MB/s [4K blocks] | 72.17 MB/s [4K blocks] |
| Uncached Write | 31.19 MB/s [256K blocks] | 28.37 MB/s [256K blocks] | 39.19 MB/s [256K blocks] | 47.63 MB/s [256K blocks] | 66.51 MB/s [256K blocks] |
| Uncached Read | 7.27 MB/s [4K blocks] | 12.11 MB/s [4K blocks] | 11.59 MB/s [4K blocks] | 10.83 MB/s [4K blocks] | 27.81 MB/s [4K blocks] |
| Uncached Read | 30.42 MB/s [256K blocks] | 28.65 MB/s [256K blocks] | 39.37 MB/s [256K blocks] | 49.62 MB/s [256K blocks] | 69.83 MB/s [256K blocks] |
| Random | 16.81 | 19.16 | 27.99 | 28.31 | 62.13 |
| Uncached Write | 0.57 MB/s [4K blocks] | 0.65 MB/s [4K blocks] | 1.08 MB/s [4K blocks] | 1.03 MB/s [4K blocks] | 2.67 MB/s [4K blocks] |
| Uncached Write | 18.35 MB/s [256K blocks] | 17.49 MB/s [256K blocks] | 19.24 MB/s [256K blocks] | 22.73 MB/s [256K blocks] | 48.45 MB/s [256K blocks] |
| Uncached Read | 0.35 MB/s [4K blocks] | 0.46 MB/s [4K blocks] | 0.41 MB/s [4K blocks] | 0.48 MB/s [4K blocks] | 0.63 MB/s [4K blocks] |
| Uncached Read | 13.28 MB/s [256K blocks] | 15.08 MB/s [256K blocks] | 16.33 MB/s [256K blocks] | 19.31 MB/s [256K blocks] | 27.08 MB/s [256K blocks] |
My 2 cents:
I was at Macworld and used it for about 15 minutes. Then walked around to see the rest of the 1000 various iPhone cases but came back later and picked it up again. I then realized what makes the MBA so great. It is a unique tactile sensation and the ability to manipulate it easily with one hand that makes it so attractive. Try doing that with your regular laptop. You will always have to use 2 hands to operate it. The MBA grows on you and when I pulled out later my Macbook, I knew that I will switch. I thought about the many other shortcomings it has.
Compromises will have to be made, but really none that would steer me away from it completely. Without sacrificing on screen size and the keyboard, they made an impressive piece of machinery. I have not had something like that since I owned a Duo 2300. (I never had a 12 inch Macbook)
No replaceable battery! Why would I even want to carry one? It defeats the purpose of why you get a MBA in the first place: To save on weight! Do I want to work more than 5 hours sitting in an airplane seat. Doesn't sound appealing to me. When the battery is empty, read a book or relax or watch a movie. There was a time when nobody had a laptop and yet life went on just fine.
Small drive? How many GB do you really need for everyday use? I have 400 GB of media, data and documents on my desktop. 98%+ of which I have not opened during the least year. I am old enough to remember when the hard drive on my Mac Classic had 20MB and yet it held all the documents I needed. Today, my accumulated folder containing every non-media document and presentation I created over the last 20 years fits on a 4 GB flash drive including 150 lectures on Powerpoint and Keynote. I have more than 5000 songs in my iTunes library, yet I find myself only listening to the same 3 or 4% of them. I have more than 10000 pictures in Aperture, most of them I will never look again. I have 30 hours of video digitized, yet only about 30 minutes of that was turned into small video files. I bet most other regular computer users are in the same category as I am.
Slow processor? I replace my laptop every 2-3 years and I can tell you that they are all fast now. I doesn't really matter if they have 1.4 or 1.6 or 2.2 GHz. For the road they are fast enough by a mile. Need processing power for video or heavy image manipulation? Do that on your desktop in front of a big screen where it is more comfortable. I couldn't imagine using Final Cut Pro on a laptop. Too small for it.
No optical drive?
Remember the floppy disk? Or the Zip Drive? My CDs are now MP3 files, my DVDs can be converted to a MPEG4 file. Do that at home, put it on a flash drive and off you go. I rarely use my optical drive now. Heavy and drains battery power. Really only used to load a few programs. Most of them can be downloaded anyway. Clever solution by Apple to use the optical drive of a nearby computer.
The list goes on. The MBA will sell in my opinion and to those who compare it to the Cube I say only 2 words: "iPod Mini" . Same negative comments I hear now about the MBA. But they sure sold. So will the MBA. Plenty of people out there that appreciate its engineering.
OK, so that was more than 2 cents
Could you now turn your attention to something relevant, like real world battery life? That would be interesting.
How the 1.6GHz processor would perform was kinda obvious. Same goes for the 1.8" hard drive - that could only be horrible, this is why you'd want the SSD in this machine. The HD is going to have way more impact than the processor speed.
So: Pleeeeeeease, test the battery life. Pretty please! Thanks.
this test alone is misdirecting.
Look also at real life test http://gizmodo.com/348733/first-macbook-air-benchmarks and size comparison http://gizmodo.com/348621/biggest-macbook-sizemodo-ever; MBA tag price is also much lower than sony/dell/toshiba ultra portable laptops and it is much powerful. If you need rushing power buy MBP, but if you need an ultra portable MBA is a no-brainer.
I just want to say that the picture for the article is hilarious - thanks for that.
However, to echo pretty much everyone else, this data surprises no one and we'd much rather see it compared against other ultra-portables. Some real benchmarks would also be nice since XBench is just numbers - let's see how long it takes to complete scripted Office, Photoshop and other such tests of things that people actually do.
i'm a die hard mac evangelist, i buy nearly every new product.
i think the mba is crap
insulting
and i was looking for a replacement to carrying round a macbook everyday.
i'd still need as big a bag, and i dare say i'd be holding it ever so carefully too.
thin isnt portable its just lighter and crapper.
this reminds me of the rokr phone, a thoughtless mid desin product thrown out to answer to the automatic press coverage and excitement.
we'll see an apple ultraportable yet, and it wont fail.
i'm keen to see how this one sells.
might be a good time to look at how low their shares are and get the old wallet out.
maybe thats what's happening here! maybe its a deliberatly crap product, made to look like they were "trying" so they loose a bit of favour, shares plummet, everybody jumps on their market, they release the ultimate ultraportable iphone-esque diamond of a machine, shares soar, we love apple again.
right now and untill i get this 450mb leopard update, they can jolly well make their own tea... i'm going out with the girls.
It's like a hot chick that's not too bright. I can put up with that.
Better buy eee pc or old compaq evo n410c
Now maybe you can do a benchmark test between the iPhone and the Octocore Mac Pro. I'm pretty sure the Mac Pro would come out the winner. My OMFG, what are you guys thinking?
very simple - the feel insecure.
Surely it should have been benchmarked against the mac-mini, comparing it to a mac book pro or an imac is plain wrong.
These comparisons are typically nonsensical in terms of typical user experience. Sort like the temperature difference of the surface of the sun which is say 10,000 degrees and being a few thousands miles away where it's a more comfortable 7000 degrees. Still hot.
Ryan, can you please list the overall configuration of the MBPs. It looks like all the improvement comes from the CPU and OS. Is there a different GPU and chipset/memory involved?
benchmarks will do that to you... create tons of questions :) thanks in advance
This article is rediculous. Excluding the price factor (which with a custom CPU in it the price doesn't suprise me), the thing is going to be slow no matter what. Its got a small, slower rated CPU in it standard...so when its put up against a MBP, iMac, etc. people are shocked? LOL. If you look at the specs and see the 1.6ghz vs. the 2.2ghz and such and your suprised by the fact the 1.6 is at the bottom of the benchmarks, your a retard :P Big shocker the computer that is built to be faster to begin with actually is! O no!!!!
Get back to us when you have the 1.8 with SSD to talk about. I've no interest in what the 1.6 can and can't do.
Macbook air. Its an example of what mac will be doing soon. Its a test bed for further development. Led display, smaller drives, SSD, Totally wireless to include software installation for all other machines, gestures for every other laptop, And why would anyone want to type on miniaturised leyboards..And to have a backlit keyboard, magsafe power cord... How lightweight does a laptop have to be? eh. Dont you think its designed to give a kick up the backside to other chip manufacturers. Smaller graphics chips, cheaper SSD?? Are we forgetting its almost totally designed to be recycled... Come on.. This is a first class computer that is making progress on the whole..
I'd like to see benchmarking against the ultra portables from Sony and other big brands.
I wanted to buy a new laptop my eyes were on macbook air, but results show that it the slowest computer in the world. please anybody tell me any 3 solid reasons to buy that except that it is superthin.
Sachin
Nerdelphia: Flash drive is a $1,000 option and you lose another 16 gigs of capacity. If this thing had 120 gigs of space or more and it was about $1,000 less I'd consider it. But for now it's just too expensive for me. I don't think Apple will be selling many of these but it is pretty.
I'm slightly confused.. why does the Macbook rank faster than the Macbook Pro?
Benchmark with 12-inch Powerbook 1.5GHz please..
Did my own..
PBook 12-inch G4 1.5 GHz, 1.25 RAM
CPU Test: 72.07
GCD Loop: 4.82 Mops/sec
Floating Point Basic: 1.21 Gflop/sec
AltiVec Basic: 7.36 Gflop/sec
veclib FFT: 2.90 Gflop/sec
Floating Point Lib: 7.89 Mops/Sec
Thread Test: 53.41
Computation: 1.26 Mops/sec
Lock Contention: 2.101 Mlocks/sec
Memory Test: 35.45
Quartz Graphics Test: 74.13
Open GL Test: 65.17
User Interface Test: 23.49
Disk Test: 36.05
comparing an ultraportable ultrathin notebook with a normal notebook or even with an iMac... and then yelling that "it is the slowest!!!" oooohh really!??
Compare it with TZ or R500 then the results may have some meaning.
i think that's just for fun...
Yeah, those benchmark results are really going to slow down all of your daily work, won't they? How much processing power do you really need for, say, developing software with eclipse, or using Pages and Co.
Sure, my MBP certainly feels a little snappier, but for most of my needs the performance is absolutely sufficient. I also don't get the point in comparing this system to other manufacturers notebooks... why??? I mean, I still want to use OS X, and there is simply no alternative in this segment.
Am I the only one confused by the MacBook seemingly performing better than the MacBook Pro?
I have a MacBook Pro and it is the last computer I buy from Apple. The production time for graphics is deplorable. If you are able to bill your clients for watching a spinning beach ball then this is the machine for you.