The 2013 MacBook Air Review (13-inch)
by Anand Lal Shimpi on June 24, 2013 12:01 AM ESTPCIe SSD Performance
I created a Boot Camp partition of around 120GB and ran our client iometer benchmarks to put the new PCIe SSD’s performance in perspective.
Peak random read performance is roughly comparable to the previous-generation Samsung controller. Random write performance took a bit of a hit but it's still more than fast enough for client workloads. Sequential speeds are much improved but the gains are really only visible at high queue depths. Low queue depth sequential transfers can’t be split up enough in order to really require PCIe.
What does this mean in the real world? The new SSD is definitely snappier in system use. Wake from sleep is a bit quicker, as are application launches. The funny thing is that with the exception of high-speed Thunderbolt arrays, most external sources aren’t fast enough to even stress the new storage subsystem in the MacBook Air. Large file copies confined to the drive itself benefit a bit as well. I saw roughly 300MB/s reads and 300MB/s writes when copying a large dmg from/to the MacBook Air’s PCIe SSD (compared to roughly 200/200MBps on the old Samsung SATA SSD from the rMBP15).
If you have an external Thunderbolt array with at least a couple of drives, you should have no issues matching the MBA’s internal SSD performance.
Seeing as how this is our first experience with Samsung’s PCIe SSD controller, I wanted to get a feel for how the drive behaved under extended high queue depth random writes. I ran a modified version of our IO consistency test. The test was modified to run in a 91GB space on the MBA’s Boot Camp partition. I made sure to fill the rest of the drive completely, but the random writes were effectively constrained to 91GB of LBAs. When I get back from the UK I’m going to try setting up an external boot drive and will do some more extensive testing on the drive.
The IO consistency results, at least within a somewhat constrained space actually look really good. I have a feeling that Samsung might have improved its IO consistency story with this generation, but I’ll wait on saying for sure until I’ve had a chance to do some more work with the controller. For the vast majority of users however, solid random write performance like this over a 91GB space on a full drive is actually very good news.
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doobydoo - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link
Sigh @ Ignorant people who compare processors of different architectures by GHz.TheinsanegamerN - Sunday, June 30, 2013 - link
the boost clocks are similar, and the haswell boosts way more than ivy bridge did. look at the cpu scores, which are similar, despite the 400 mhz reduction.Krysto - Monday, June 24, 2013 - link
Disappointing to see that even Apple has started being misleading about its battery life for laptops.It seems unlike Steve Jobs, Tim Cook is more of a "regular manager" who prefer spec lists and bullet points, over being truthful to customers. Now they're just lying about battery life numbers just as every other PC OEM out there - 12h of battery life! (but you might actually get only half of that).
And all that with a CPU that is 20 percent slower than last year, and a GPU that's twice as big but only 10-20 percent better than last year.
Also, the dual core Haswell chip alone costs $350? Yikes. So you still think these chips have any chance of competing in the tablet space, Anand? The whole of iPad Mini costs less than that, with a sub $30 chip. Intel is as behind as always when it comes to competing in the mobile space.
madmilk - Monday, June 24, 2013 - link
Sheesh, at least read the review. The battery life is 11 hours on the light workload, which is certainly more than half of the advertised 12. This difference is easily accounted for by the higher screen brightness and Flash. The 1.3GHz Haswell is not 20% slower either than the comparable 1.7GHz Ivy. More like 5% at worst, and in several cases faster. The GPU is 20% faster in a _much_ lower TDP, once the FIVR and PCH are accounted for, which contributes to the very impressive battery life on the heavy workload as well. As for Haswell pricing -- ULV i5/i7 are in another league compared to any ARM offering on the market. Atoms and Celerons are more appropriate for the toy tablet market.Sushisamurai - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link
... If you read the fine print on apple's website, they increased the benchmark demands on the MBA compared to previous battery tests just to make the 12 hrs seem more realistic. CNET and a few other sites posted their battery tests of the 13" to be rated for 14+ hours. I think anand already made a point about this...And if you compare ARM A9's & ARM A15's performance to intel's haswell platform... You would know ARM processors really can't compete on the same level. There's a reason for that price difference
lyeoh - Monday, June 24, 2013 - link
OK, so which review site is better? So that we can go read it as well...whyso - Monday, June 24, 2013 - link
You know what would be nice. GPU benchmarks for the rmbp 13" or HD 4000 from a standard voltage part to see how it compares to the HD 5000.tipoo - Monday, June 24, 2013 - link
Agreed. It can be confusing when the ULV parts have the same name as normal TDP parts and perform significanlty differently.tecsi - Monday, June 24, 2013 - link
Could these MBAs support external 4k displays given the Intel 5000? There appears to be a new Thunderbolt part—is this Thunderbolt 2? I am surmising that this support could be turned on in MBAs when the Mac Pro arrives with Mavericks, along with potentially Apple 4k displays.tipoo - Monday, June 24, 2013 - link
Not Thunderbolt 2. Only the new Mac Pro has that right now.