Does more battery and higher processor affect on battery life?

Question

I'm planning on getting a customized macbook air 13" .. It says it should last 8 hours wireless browsing which is reallygood, but it didnt say whether on the default customization or anything .. So here are the default

Core i5 processor - 4gb ram
I'm changing it to
Core i7 processor - 8gb ram

Will this drain the battery life?.. I know it will use more energy in case it used more than 4gb, but what if it only used 1.5GB and the total ram is 8GB, how does this affect ?

And same applies to the processor, would it drain the battery? And how long would it possibily last with those performances ?

Answer 1

It can last up to 8 hours on the absolute minimum settings, in the basic default hardware configuration. That means things like... throttling the processor, a minimum amount of Ram, having the screen at it's dimmest settings, setting the hard drive turn off after a short amount of time, etc.

You change the hardware to more power intensive components, and you will have less power. Since it takes power to use Ram (unpowered Ram doesn't do anything useful), adding more Ram will consume more power. Once the computer is turned on, there is power to the Ram. You are not only sending power to the amount of Ram you think you are using at that moment. Adding a faster, stronger processor will also consume more power.

Now. You want to know...

how long would it possibily last

... well, that's a request for a relatively exact figure, while you weren't very exact with your information. I can't look up the power consumption specifications for each processor, because although I know the family, I don't know the exact model for each processor. At the minimum settings, would it last 8 hours? No. It might last 6 or maybe even 7. It won't last 8 though.