All,

 

I've got a severe case of gadget lust for the 2012 MacBook Air. The specs I'd order, all packed into a 3 lb body would be:

 

2.0 Ghz Ivy Bridge processor with 4 MB shared L3 cache

8 GB 1600 Mhz DDRL3 SD RAM

256 GB SSD, with at least an 80 GB Windows 7 partition (for DNS 11.5 and Office)

 

This is an obvious upgrade over my current machine, a 2008 Toshiba laptop with 4 GB of RAM and a first generation Intel Core2Duo. I know that there are laptops out there with better bang for my buck, but I'm primarily interested in this form factor and Mac OS X.

 

Bottom line, will this run DNS 11.5 on Boot Camp? Although this machine may not scream, can I expect DNS to perform well on everyday consumer tasks (web surfing, chatting/forums, and dictating documents)? This wouldn't be my primary work/testing.professional machine by any means, just my "everyday, general use" machine. My primary microphone would likely be my trusty Sennheiser ME-3 with a USB sound pod.

 

Thanks, all, for any insight.

 

Edited to add: it turns out I was wrong on the L3 cache. It's probably still a bit low, but the 2.0 Ghz processor has 4 MB of L3 cache. I don't know if it'll be an appreciable difference, but it couldn't hurt.

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Eric Wright At work: DNS 12 Pro. At home: DNS 11.5 Pro,  KnowBrainer 2011, and Utter Command by RedStart Systems; Dragon Dictate 3 for Mac

 

Appetite for Dictation - My Blog

Eric,

You shouldn't have any problems other than normal configuration issues. You might be pleasantly surprised at how well DNS works under Ivy Bridge processors. I'm getting ready to post specs on DNS performance on my Core™ i7 3770K. Definitely and significantly better performance than my Core™ i7 980X Extreme with DNS 11.5 Professional. You might be a little weak on L3 cache, but it appears that the tri-gate transistors have a significant impact on how well DNS performs. Just an observation that has to be followed up with numbers, but whenever I dictate with the Ivy Bridge system, speech to text display is instantaneous. I also went a little overboard with 32 GB of 1866 MHz RAM and my system is overclocked to 4.3 GHz. Let's put it this way, I'm exceedingly happy with Ivy Bridge performance and DNS. The Ivy Bridge processor and motherboard only has two channel memory vs. three channel memory for the Core™ i7 980X Extreme, and it only has four cores vs. six cores and 8 MB of L3 cache vs. 12 MB of L3 cache Core™ i7 3770K vs. my Core™ i7 980X Extreme.

Chuck

"Aiming for the moon and missing it is better than aiming for the ditch and hitting it." - Author Unknown

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Thanks, Chuck. You might not remember, but in 2010 I posted about wanting the MacBook Air back then and you rightly advised by that the architecture of the time wasn't up to running DNS. I've been waiting for a "DNS capable" MBA (rather impatiently), and I suspected that the new relese is finally it. I was probably going to take the plunge regardless, but it's always nice to get an opinion to support the confirmation that Iwas looking for. You're probably spot-on as well about this processor being weak on L3 cache so instantanous transcription probably won't happen, but this should be good enough. Of course, a ridiculously expensive "good enough," but when has reason ever stood between a fool and his money?

This is as good a time to mention that the Haswell chips will probably be even more capable, while offering better cooling and longer battery life. But such is the technology space, eh? There's always something better around the corner. But as it stands this weekend I've got the unique confluence of a professional discount, an education discount, and a tax holiday so I'll probably never find a better deal on overpriced tech.

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Eric Wright At work: DNS 12 Pro. At home: DNS 11.5 Pro,  KnowBrainer 2011, and Utter Command by RedStart Systems; Dragon Dictate 3 for Mac

 

Appetite for Dictation - My Blog

Should work well. I've been running DNS 11.5 on a MBP 2011 with similar specs (4GB RAM, 128GB SSD) and it works great.