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MacBook Air vs MBP 2013 Benchmarks?

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David Engstrom

30 Sep, 2013 06:00 AM

Can someone tell me why the 2013 MacBook Airs running at 1.3GHz i5 are able to almost keep up with 2013 MacBook Pro running at 2.6GHz i5. I realize that the new MacBook Airs have a slightly more advanced processor .... But does this explain the only 18% difference between the one MBP running at twice the clock speed of low-end MacBook Airs? GeekBench: MBP 5855 MBA 4946

Thanks
David

1. Support Staff 1 Posted by John on 03 Oct, 2013 03:39 AM

   

   Hi David,

   Thank you for your message. Both laptops have processors with Intel Turbo Boost technology. Turbo Boost lets processors run at frequencies above their base frequency. The MacBook Air has a peak frequency of 2.6GHz, and the MacBook Pro has a peak frequency of 3.2GHz.

   When you compare the scores with the peak frequencies, you'll see that the MacBook Pro is 18% faster thanks to a 23% higher peak frequency.

   Let me know if you have any other questions and I'd be happy to help out.

   Best,
   John

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2. 2 Posted by David Engstrom on 05 Oct, 2013 01:58 AM

   

   Thanks John for this information.  I understand that you would get this kind of result from a Benchmark program .... But would it be mirrored in real world tests like say running a Photoshop filter on an image?  In other words does GeekBench give an over weighted effect to the Turbo Boost technology or is this a realistic difference you would find when running regular applications.

   Thanks for your help on this
   David Engstrom

   ________________________________
    From: John <[email blocked]>

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3. 3 Posted by Hardy on 05 Nov, 2013 04:22 PM

   

   I was also wondering this, given the 15W vs 28W TDP of the CPUs. Are the Geekbench benchmarks short enough for thermal throttling not to kick in? Would a job like compiling a large code base show bigger differences?

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4. Support Staff 4 Posted by John on 07 Nov, 2013 05:00 AM

   

   It's been our experience that recent Intel chips can sustain frequencies near or at the Turbo Boost limit for extended periods of time when running single-threaded tasks. Also, Geekbench interleaves single-threaded and multi-threaded tasks, and the multi-threaded tests absolutely cause the processor to "throttle back" to lower frequencies. However, when returning to a single-threaded task, the processor is able to "throttle up" to higher frequencies quite quickly since the other cores are idle.

   Let me know if you have any other questions and I'd be happy to help out.

   Best,
   John

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5. 5 Posted by Hardy on 07 Nov, 2013 10:01 AM

   

   Actually, as I understand it that's what Turbo Boost is meant to do: allow a single core to clock up to use most of the power/TDP threshold when other core(s) are idle. That's presumably why the Turbo Boost frequency is not a lot higher than the base frequency for desktop CPUs but can be a lot higher for the low-power/TDP mobile parts.

   So that explains why the single-threaded performance of the 13" Pro and the Air are similar, but not the multi-threaded performance (5475 vs. 6177): http://www.primatelabs.com/blog/2013/10/retina-macbook-pro-benchmarks

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6. John closed this discussion on 19 Nov, 2013 05:36 AM.