How fast is the MacBook Air (NVIDIA/Late 2008) compared to the original MacBook Air? How fast is it compared to the "Unibody" MacBook and MacBook Pro models?

Please note that all Macs mentioned in this Q&A have been discontinued. The MacBook Air (NVIDIA/Late 2008) models were replaced by the "Mid-2009" MacBook Air on June 8, 2009. For more recent performance Q&As, please refer to the main MacBook Air Q&A page.

Just like the original MacBook Air, the NVIDIA/Late 2008 "MBA" systems are not designed for those with high-performance needs. The MacBook Air line was designed for those who place a premium on size and weight rather than performance.

With even a cursory review of the specifications of the MacBook Air (NVIDIA/Late 2008) models compared to the original MacBook Air, it should be apparent that the NVIDIA/Late 2008 models have similar processor speeds but substantial improvements in architecture and graphics and one would expect the speed boost to be notable.

Compared to the "Unibody" MacBook and MacBook Pro, however, it should be apparent that the architectures between these systems and the MacBook Air are similar, but the MBA has slower processors and one would expect performance to lag significantly as a result, with the possible exception of disk-related tasks for MBA models configured with an SSD.

SlashGear hit the MBA with the Geekbench benchmarking tool and largely confirmed these assumptions:

Compared to the Late-2008 MacBook and MacBook Pro, the Geekbench results are unsurprising: the Air still comes in third with an overall score of 2467 in the 64-bit tests, compared to its chunkier siblings at 3170 for the MacBook and 3664 for the Pro. That’s part of the reason that Apple expect the Air and the standard MacBook to occupy their own niches; the latter, with its double RAM capacity and higher performance, will appeal to Photoshop and video editors, while Air users are pegged as frequent-travelers doing little more than web browsing, email and word processing.

Focusing primarily on Xbench scores and the performance attributed to the SSD, ComputerWorld discovered:

New owners have been delighted to find that Xbench benchmarking scores are coming in higher than those for Apple's more powerful MacBook Pro lineup. (With Xbench, higher is better.) I can attest to this. My MacBook Pro, which has a 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo processor and a 160 GB hard drive spinning at 7,200 RPM, checks in with a score of about 118; the new MacBook and MacBook Pro models return scores of around 123; this particular Air hit 141. In comparison, the first-generation Air with a standard hard drive returned an Xbench score of 43.

To reiterate: Benchmark scores are not real performance. While SSDs are very fast at reading data compared with platter-based hard drives, they can be a little slower when writing data. Thus, while Photoshop may launch lightning quick, applying a filter to a photo and saving it will even out much of that speed boost.

In a review as well as a comprehensive set of speed tests that should be read in their entirety, MacWorld found:

Our overall system performance benchmark, Speedmark 5, found the 1.86 GHz MacBook Air [NVIDIA/Late 2008] to be quite a bit faster across the board than the standard 1.6 GHz MacBook Air from January [2008]. The 1.86 GHz Air turned in a 51 percent higher Speedmark score. . .

More telling were the new system's results compared to our build-to-order Air from earlier this year, the model that featured the optional 1.8 GHz Core 2 Duo processor, but kept the standard 120 GB Parallel ATA hard drive. The new high-end Air posted a 39 percent higher Speedmark 5 score than that old CTO Air. It was also 28 percent faster in our Photoshop tests and 22 percent faster in our Cinema 4D testing. . .

But the MacBook Air just can’t match the speeds of other Mac laptops. In fact, the Core 2 Duo processor in the new low-end [US]$999 white MacBook runs 13 percent faster than the high-end MacBook Air. . . If you were to compare the top-of-the-line MacBook Air to the top of the new unibody MacBook line, a 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo model with the Nvidia GeForce 9400M graphics, you’d find a much bigger difference. The new high-end Air earned an 18 percent lower Speedmark 5 score, a 25 percent slower result in our Photoshop test suite, and a 71 percent slower time in our Compressor MPEG encode tests.

Ultimately, the NVIDIA/Late 2008 MacBook Air models provide a significant performance boost compared to the original MBA but continue to substantially lag compared to the "regular" MacBook and MacBook Pro models.

Site sponsor PowerMax has new and used MacBook Air models available free of sales tax.