2012 MacBook Air i7 slower than i5 in Windows (Boot Camp)

[smellypantsman]

The new 2012 i7-3667U MacBook Air's are incorrectly clocked in Windows under Boot Camp. Rather than running at a x20 multiplier (2GHz) they run at x19 (1.9GHz) and never go into Turbo Mode and rarely drop down to lower multipliers/clock-speeds. As a result under Windows they are slower than the much cheaper i5 and also sip more energy due to not dropping down to lower speeds.

More here: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1394206 and here: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4035733?start=0&tstart=0

[zaroth]

A possible work around is to run your Windows OS in a virtual machine instead of bootcamp. With the new Air taking 16GB of RAM you can probably afford to have both OSs running at once.

As long as you're booting into OSx the CPU should clock and turbo boost properly. It might be a wash due to overhead of the VM and OSx background tasks though...

[aaronbrethorst → zaroth]

The new Air maxes out at 8GB[1]. It's the Retina MBP that maxes out at 16GB.

[1] I have the i7 model, and absolutely love it. It replaced a mid-2009 15" MBP for me. I would've gotten an Air much sooner but absolutely need 8GB RAM. If 16 had been available for it, I would have gotten that instead.

[jasomill → aaronbrethorst]

Right, but s/16GB/8GB/g and the point still stands. People often prefer Boot Camp for reasons other than available RAM, however.

As an aside, one point often overlooked when comparing the perceived performance of the new Air to older models is that all the 2012 MacBooks use noticeably faster SSDs than older Apple-installed options — for this reason, my "stock" Ivy Bridge Air (11-inch Mid 2012, 4GB RAM, 128GB SSD, 1.7GHz dual-core i5, integrated graphics) seems faster for many tasks than my "loaded" Sandy Bridge MacBook Pro (17-inch Early 2011, 8GB RAM, 500GB SSD, 2.2GHz quad-core i7, discrete GPU).

[smellypantsman]

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1394206 and https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4035733?start=0&tst...

[cskau]

Interesting.. I was actually thinking of buying exactly this model.

Does anyone know if this is fixable with just a software/firmware update?

[jpxxx → cskau]

According to a forum-goer who reported it to Apple, they are aware Turbo Boost isn't properly being initialized during Windows boot and will be issuing a firmware update.