On the new MacBook Air, is it worth upgrading the chip to the i7? The base clock speed isn't that much faster (1.3 vs 1.7 I think) but the maximum turbo boost is significantly faster in the i7. So I'm wondering, would the MacBook Air (13 inch) ever run cool enough and have enough power etc. to get there? If not, I guess there's no point in choosing the i7 over the i5? $160 price difference btw...

I have two windows PC's, one with an i7 3770 and the other with an i5 3550.  I don't see any difference with Sonar X2 on either machine, with Windows 8.  There is a difference with the Intel video (different versions) and some other, non Sonar, functions.  The i7 machine is my primary and the i5 is a "backup" system. 
 
For the price difference I would go with the i7.  My recomendation, when a client asks me about new PC's, is "buy as much as the pocketbook can stand" or "buy overkill". 

Thanks for the reply. I'm still on the fence a bit, as I would only rarely use the laptop for CPU intensive work - I'm almost always on my desktop PC at my studio for audio work. But I guess it's better safe than sorry, as you say - $160 isn't that much at the end of the day, may as well go for it...

jamescollins
On the new MacBook Air, is it worth upgrading the chip to the i7? The base clock speed isn't that much faster (1.3 vs 1.7 I think) but the maximum turbo boost is significantly faster in the i7. So I'm wondering, would the MacBook Air (13 inch) ever run cool enough and have enough power etc. to get there? If not, I guess there's no point in choosing the i7 over the i5? $160 price difference btw...

I'd opt for a MacBook Pro instead of the Air.
Faster CPUs...