Real Life MacBook Air 11" Benchmark - Video Encoding
Wednesday, August 3, 2011 at 11:02PM Ok, so we've seen lot's of raw processor speeds and "GeekBench" benchmarks for the new 2011 MacBook Air, but how does it stand up in "real-life" usage?
One of the first things people said about the 2010 MacBook Air was that it was a powerful machine, "but you really wouldn't want to use it for video editing".
To be honest, the video editing is fine, it's the video encoding that might give cause for concern.
Video encoding is one of the most processor intensive tasks you can throw at a computer. As well as maxing out the processors (the more cores the better), it also stresses the i/o of a machine.
For maximum video encoding speed, you need multiple processors and speedy disks.
As part of my standard production workflow, I routinely produce huge "master" video files of the ScreenCastsOnline tutorials, then encode them into multiple resolutions for distribution. For fun, I thought I'd take one of my production master files and run it through Handbrake on various machines, to see the relative video encoding performance of each machine.
I chose a 20 minute screencast, with a resolution of 1280x720 encoded with the lossless animation codec at 25 frames per second and millions of colours. The "master" file weighed in at 3.8 GB.
Using Handbrake, I selected the standard Apple TV preset, bumped the resolution up to 1280x720 with a constant quality of 25.
Handbrake is a great encoder, running at 64bit and optimised for multiple cores.
Here is how it played out:
Obviously, the 8 core MacPro with 16GB of RAM and a striped RAID drive crunched though the file pretty speedily, with all 8 cores powering through the encode.
However, I was shocked at the performance of the 2011 MacBook Air 11" with the 1.8 GHz Intel Core i7 - It only took 3.5 minutes longer compared to the Mac Pro.
That's nearly twice as fast as the 2010 MacBook Air.
I don't think you need to worry about video encoding on a 2011 MacBook Air.
Will be interesting to see what a difference using Thunderbolt attached storage would make!
Update: Here is a screenshot of the MBA showing all the processor maxing out. The Intel Core i7 is a dual core chip, but uses Hyper-Threading which makes it appear as a 4 core chip to the OS. Hence the 4 displays.
Reader Comments (19)
It would be good to see an i7 MBP in there also. I realise you can't buy every Mac going! Borrow one? Cheers Don
Was the MBA running awfully hot while doing the encode? Were the fans spinning at an audible/annoying level?
Pascal,
I wasn't sure as I couldn't remember hearing the fan, so I ran the test again. I powered down the MBA and made sure it started from cold.
When I started the job, the fans did not kick in until about three minutes into the encoding. I had to lift up the MBA and listen to make sure, so not annoying in the slightest.
By the end of the job, the underside of the MBA was hot. Not unbearably hot, but hotter than warm! There seemed to be a hotspot on the left hand side of the MBA. The top of the MBA surrounding the keyboard stayed perfectly cool.
Hope that helps!
Awesome Don. How do you think that stacks up against the 2011 13" MBP?
Shouldn't be any different if you use the same processor spec
Would love to see you expand the test to include the dual core 2.5 GHz i5 and quad core 2.0 GHz i7 Mac Minis.
How do you think a Thunderbolt would affect speeds - if I'm not mistaken SSD is blazing fast and with Thunderbolt you'll hit the drive limitations ... so unless it is a server grade HD or a SSD wouldn't the internal be faster?
Impressive results! Once I heard you had purchased a new MacBook Air I was hoping you'd give it a try at encoding a large video. I've been considering moving to one of the new MacBook Air's from an older MacBook Pro and now it looks like a go!
Thanks Don for taking the time to Benchmark this for us.
Regards,
Bruce
Tim, I was thinking of some sort of RAID array via the Thunderbolt. Might make a difference, might not!
Well that was an expensive blog post.
I'd been umming and arring over upgrading my 13" 2010 Air to an 11" 2011. After having read this I popped down to the Apple Store at lunchtime and now I have one :-)
Nice going Paul!
Now if only I could get some sort of commission with Apple ;-)
Thanks, Don. Great info. Now, more than ever, am compelled to consider the 11" MBA, although still trying to debate its usefulness on top of my iPad in travel situations. One question - what is the menu bar app that you used to show the cpu's getting pegged?
Interesting read Don and good to see that the investment will have some verifiable returns to both you in terms of time and us in terms of speed of production.
One thing I'm interested in is how this purchase might affect your use of the iPad, especially when travelling. Will you still be carrying both?
David - menubar app is iStat Menu
Mark - Yes, still will take both devices when travelling and the new MBA hasn't affected my iPad usage at all as of yet
Don,
Thanks for posting these benchmarks, I was debating wether to get a mac pro or a Mac air 13" with a i5 1.7ghz CPU for video editing. It looks like the mac air would do the job,since it would be mainly used for home movies, nothing too fancy (unless I get really good at it). I got tired of fighting the pc based video editors, I was amazed at the ease of editing video with my daughter's two year old Mac pro laptop.
Thanks.
Excellent post... just excellent.
Great post thanks - would you mind trying a similar test with Thunderbolt storage? It would be great to know how it works out.
Thanks
This is hugely encouraging…I was on the Pro/Air fence for a while, but this just knocked me solidly into the Air camp. Not that I'm unhappy with my old Pro, I just tend to live out of a backpack for months at a time and it takes a toll on my spine!! :)
Thanks for this,
Zak
I'm also undecided on whether to get the Pro 13" i5 or Air 13" i5. Love the form factor of the Air but kinda thinks that the Pro will have more juice for video & photo editing. So, for you guys who've been running Final Cut Pro on your 2011 or 2012 Air 13" i5, is it still going well after 6 to 12 months?