Confused about 11" Air Benchmarks

As I have been researching the differences between the 11" Air 2011 vs 2010, I noticed that the 2011 system is showing a higher number on the WEI, particularly on gaming graphics (6.2 vs 6.0) and the 3DMark06 score is comparable, if not the same, as the 2010 model (around 4300). My confusion is on paper, the 2011 system should show much improved graphical performance in Windows 7, yet all the videos and reviews I have read show framerates and performance are anywhere from 20-30% below last year's model. That doesn't make sense when you read the WEI and 3dMark scores on Windows. I would think that the CPU would help compensate for performance, especially with high scores that the 2011 is receiving.

 

You may be aware of this, but for those who may not be:

1. WEI has been known, since it's inception, as one of the least reliable measures of graphics performance around; its reliability over multiple MS releases hasn't improved. 0.2 difference is not relevant.

2. 3DM benchmarks are also well known to only be a rough indicator of relative graphics performance. As they are synthetic, real-world performance can and will vary by gaming title ... this is why all of the major review sources (Ars, MaxPC, etc) use actual gaming engine benchmarks when looking at GPU performance. Plenty of gpu cards can smoke through the 3DM bench, but crack under the strain of actual pixel rendering etc in a given game title. Further, differences in cpu performance have never been able to compensate for relative deficiency in graphics capability, incl framerates; this has remained unchanged for years.

3. Last year's Air used the nVidia 320M gpu, while the newest Lion Airs have switched to Intel HD3000 iGPU that comes with the Sandy Bridge chipset and the amount of shared RAM depends on which 11" model you're talking about. The overall performance difference between the nVidia and Intel graphics solutions is likely to be the primary culprit in the realtime gaming framerate differences.

In addition, there is published evidence that Apple has now multi-sourced the SSDs in the new Airs, with the Toshiba SSD providing throughput significantly below the Samsung variants. Whether this would be sufficient to translate into some portion of the framerate and performance in a given game title is unclear to me.

 

Excellent explanation! That makes sense! Maybe some folks will start posting some real scores for some games other than WoW and SC2.

 

The problem is that games like WoW and SC2 run nice under OS X but that is about it. Under Windows, the Nvidia 320M is outpacing the HD 3000 due to better driver support (sometimes it is large and other times it sin't). However, under OS X, the HD 3000 is actually performing on par with the 320M, a little below it for some tasks, and a little better for others (i.e. SC2).

Given that OS X is the primary OS of the MBA, I doubt Windows benchmarks are going to do much good outside of the gaming circle especially given Apple's poor driver implementation in Windows (i.e. the SSD is seen as an IDE drive). Even then, as previously explained, benchmarks aren't the end all of testing. I would even take raw FPS scores for games under Windows with a grain of salt simply because there are a bunch of different Nvidia drivers out there and having the right drivers can make a rather large difference.

 

I thought I would ask - even though it's not really related to this post; however I was just playing a little Crysis 2 and getting around 25-30 fps in certain spots and about 20-21 during heavier fighting scenes. I noticed this happened to me a couple times, but it looks like the graphics are beginning to tear during certain spots while playing. It's hard to describe, but it looks like 3/4 of the screen gets covered by a weird graphical glitch and doesn't go away until playing through it for another 5-10 seconds. It then starts happening again. I totally understand that the Air is not meant for gaming, particularly Crysis 2, however I have played plenty of hours without issues at 1024x576 and the lowest settings offered. Could this be related to overheating or a problem with the Nvidia card while playing stressful games such as Crysis 2?

 

Its hard to tell what it could be but the performance sounds normal especially for such a lower end machine. I would kind of point to heat being the problem if the issue doesn't come up until after a little bit of playing. I could be wrong though.

 

I think I figured out the problem. I ran the game again with Fraps off and I suffered no weird graphical glitches. I must admit, I was thinking about getting the M11x R3 which undoubtedly be the better system for games like Crysis 2, but something about having such a light and portable system with the ability to dual boot (Windows 7 for gaming and OSX for productivity and photo editing) can't be beat. Plus I can bring my Air to work and look more professional. I am really hoping that the next Air doesn't take another step backward with the gpu now that it has such an awesome CPU. I would like to see a powerful AMD processor combined with an integrated AMD gpu than have a mediocre Intel graphics card.

 

The HD 3000 is actually no slouch. Intel's previous options were pretty bad but the HD 3000 pretty much redeems Intel. It isn't as powerful as some of the other IGP options from either Nvidia or AMD but it also consumes a lot less power and produces less heat. That is the key issue here: increasing performance while decreasing power consumption (or keeping it the same) and decrease thermal output (or keeping it the same). Though a nice quad-core AMD APU with 6500 level graphics would be nice, it would also be way too large for a MBA unless Apple felt like designing a model that was thicker and didn't last as long on a single charge.

Right now, for whatever reason, Intel is actually doing pretty good on the ULV field and even with notebooks in general.

 

I was hoping that Intel would release better drivers for Windows to help increase framerates. I am sure if Apple sticks with Intel integrated graphics for the next iteration, they should be much better (let's hope).

 

Intel IGPs have always looked better on synthetic benchmarks than actual game benchmarks.