2020 Air Heatsink Modification Thread

[deeddawg]

Why even have the Air then? Or, why not just stick the 15W processor in the Air? What is the tradeoff really going to be?

Likely nobody outside of Apple will ever know for sure, but we can make guesses...

$999 vs $1499 for a 8GB/256GB config suggests price segmentation - particularly for the typical non-propellerhead consumers buying their Mac at BestBuy who couldn't tell you the difference between i3 and i5, but knows they want 512GB storage and to whom $500 is a lot of money.

Similarly the 8GB/512GB spread is a little less, "only" $400, $1299 vs $1699, again still a lot of money to many folks - and for non-propellerheads who have no idea what TDP is or means.

 

[RegularGuy09]

Likely nobody outside of Apple will ever know for sure, but we can make guesses...

$999 vs $1499 for a 8GB/256GB config suggests price segmentation - particularly for the typical non-propellerhead consumers buying their Mac at BestBuy who couldn't tell you the difference between i3 and i5, but knows they want 512GB storage and to whom $500 is a lot of money.

Similarly the 8GB/512GB spread is a little less, "only" $400, $1299 vs $1699, again still a lot of money to many folks - and for non-propellerheads who have no idea what TDP is or means.

Yes you make a good point. But now that the Air is coming with base storage at 250GB im assuming same will happen with the Pro. So you get the base Air at $1000 and the base Pro at $1300. Thats a $300 difference, I agree. But I mean...whats the point? The Airs used to have 15W CPUs. All the competiting ultrabooks use 15W CPUs. I mean Apple could simply put that processor in the Air and smoke all the competitors. Then you could have your Pro's with the 28W processors starting at a higher price point.

Right now the only thing the Air has going for it is the form factor(wedge) and the lower price point. Previously the Air was known for its longer battery life and class leading performance at the price/form factor. That is no longer the case.

So for now its like this :

Air 13 : The cheapest notebook.
Pro 13 2 TB : Best overall notebook.
Pro 13 4 TB : Best performing notebook.

I think Apple should just make the 13" Air the best overall notebook like it was(with just the right amount of everything), and keep the Pro 13 4 TB as it is. Its simpler, isnt it?

 

[Pugly]

My question for the Air is very different. For me, Im not really getting whats the point of having the 13" Pro with the 15W processor, and the 13" Air with the 10W processor. The Pro has better performance, and similar battery life, form factor and weight.

Why even have the Air then? Or, why not just stick the 15W processor in the Air? What is the tradeoff really going to be?

I think the Air is designed the way it is to keep battery life high. The Retina screen, smaller size and 15W chips would get worse battery life than the comparable 13" Pro. There really isn't that much difference between them.

So Apple designed the Air case and cooling around the slower low power chips. And they don't redesign cases and cooling designs that often.

I don't like it, since the U-series chips were originally MBA chips. The 13" Pro just had slightly faster versions of these with a bit better cooling too, but really of the same design.

But then the non-touch bar Pro was made to make two levels of the 13" Pro as the replacement for the Air... but I don't think people wanted that without the Air's design.

I'd love the Air to have a 15W chip now, but that's a couple of market segmentation/case cooling design choices brings us to where we are today.

It's good that the chips Intel makes in this category have finally gotten good enough to feel like a upgrade. The 2018 Air was barely any faster than the non-retina Airs. You are getting about 75% of the Pros performance which is pretty good, before it was less than 50% of the performance. But the gap will probably widen when the next 13"/14" Pro comes out...

 

[magbarn]

Yes you make a good point. But now that the Air is coming with base storage at 250GB im assuming same will happen with the Pro. So you get the base Air at $1000 and the base Pro at $1300. Thats a $300 difference, I agree. But I mean...whats the point? The Airs used to have 15W CPUs. All the competiting ultrabooks use 15W CPUs. I mean Apple could simply put that processor in the Air and smoke all the competitors. Then you could have your Pro's with the 28W processors starting at a higher price point.

Right now the only thing the Air has going for it is the form factor(wedge) and the lower price point. Previously the Air was known for its longer battery life and class leading performance at the price/form factor. That is no longer the case.

So for now its like this :

Air 13 : The cheapest notebook.
Pro 13 2 TB : Best overall notebook.
Pro 13 4 TB : Best performing notebook.

I think Apple should just make the 13" Air the best overall notebook like it was(with just the right amount of everything), and keep the Pro 13 4 TB as it is. Its simpler, isnt it?

Yeah the 2 TB mbp model tier did not exist when the non retina mba was in its heyday And could come close to mbp performance. I guess in Apple’s eyes that takes the place of the previous high performing mba versions...
But why do that when Apple can make an extra $300-$400 off of me?

 

[srkirt]

Someone asked me for measurements, here I leave you these photos and the connector you have to disconnect to avoid having tension on the board.

 

[deeddawg]

whats the point? The Airs used to have 15W CPUs. All the competiting ultrabooks use 15W CPUs. ...

Right now the only thing the Air has going for it is the form factor(wedge) and the lower price point. Previously the Air was known for its longer battery life and class leading performance at the price/form factor. That is no longer the case.

Presumably, the majority target market (in Apple's view) cares more about form and price than what wattage CPU is inside or whether it gets 10 or 11 hours on battery. (yes, even premium product purchases "care" about price, and "anchoring" is a real concept - much easier to get someone's interest at $999 and the upgrades seem less expensive than just starting out at a higher point. Apple hasn't seemed interested in getting into the low-price competition mudpits.)

I think Apple should just make the 13" Air the best overall notebook like it was(with just the right amount of everything), and keep the Pro 13 4 TB as it is. Its simpler, isnt it?

Seems like Apple thinks differently? The old Air was handicapped with a crappy screen, so the nearness in performance to the MBP13's likely wasn't as much of a factor in cannibalization of sales.

What constitutes "best" really is a matter of what the goal is - many of the folks here are focused on performance and think everything should be as powerful as it can be. As we've seen year after year after year, Apple seems to have a different view on such matters -- look at the myriad megathreads on "what Apple should have done different" over the past ten+ years by the many armchair engineers we have here on MR. iOS devices without "enough" RAM, rMB12's not powerful enough, base configurations too weak, pricepoints is too high, #Pick-a-Gate-of-the-Year, yada yada yada. (Not saying Apple hasn't screwed up sometimes, but there's usually a lot more flash here than substance in the outside world)

Every design has tradeoffs and compromises. We may not understand the logic of the choices made. We may wish different tradeoffs were made. Wish in one hand, sht in the other, see which fills up first.

Apple as a megacorporation doesn't "care about its users" - that's marketing - you'll be disappointed if you think otherwise. They care about the bottom line and returning value to shareholders. Want to send a message? Vote with your wallet.

 

[bill-p]

So for now its like this :

Air 13 : The cheapest notebook.
Pro 13 2 TB : Best overall notebook.
Pro 13 4 TB : Best performing notebook.

I think Apple should just make the 13" Air the best overall notebook like it was(with just the right amount of everything), and keep the Pro 13 4 TB as it is. Its simpler, isnt it?

I don't think your "for now" is quite right. Here, this is more proper:

Cheapest overall computer: iPad
Cheapest notebook: Air 13
Best compact notebook: Pro 13
Best performing notebook: Pro 16
Best compact computer with awesome performance and great thermals: iPad Pro
Best selling: iPad
Best profit margin: iPad
Best technology: iPad
Best for most consumers: iPad

So... the Air is the way it is because of the iPad, not because of the MacBook. It's quite clear to me Apple is thinking about axing the Air before long, and making that $999 position the iPad Pro. Anything above that will most likely just be the 14" and 16" Pro.

P.S.: as an aside... since I also owned a 12" MacBook a while back: I absolutely found no thread complaining about the 12" MacBook running HOT. There were the occasional threads about it not being fast enough, though.

 

[RiaKoobcam]

Someone asked me for measurements, here I leave you these photos and the connector you have to disconnect to avoid having tension on the board.

That's awesome, thanks Jordi. Great measurements for anyone looking to cool their 2019 MBA.

If anyone attempts this on their 2020, please post your measurements! ✌

 

[raymanh]

So is this the end of the thread? Better cooling yields approx. 10% gains in sustained performance. End?

 

[KPOM]

So is this the end of the thread? Better cooling yields approx. 10% gains in sustained performance. End?

Pretty much. Much ado about nothing.

 

[srkirt]

So is this the end of the thread? Better cooling yields approx. 10% gains in sustained performance. End?

YES !!! perfect !!! I am editing videos with DaVinci Resolve and when rendering, the fan is not even activated because it does not exceed 75º. Here you have the processing power that I have increased by lowering the temp of the cpu.
[automerge]1587619020[/automerge]
This is for KPOM ... a lot of noise and few nuts nothing at all ... to start I do not make noise, I investigate and demonstrate with Benmarch the result, that is neither nuts nor anything, ok ??

 

[hmhmmhmmm?]

YES !!! perfect !!! I am editing videos with DaVinci Resolve and when rendering, the fan is not even activated because it does not exceed 75º. Here you have the processing power that I have increased by lowering the temp of the cpu.
[automerge]1587619020[/automerge]
This is for KPOM ... a lot of noise and few nuts nothing at all ... to start I do not make noise, I investigate and demonstrate with Benmarch the result, that is neither nuts nor anything, ok ??



View attachment 908466 View attachment 908475

Jordi just wanted to let you know that i appreciate what you’re doing. I for one would love to to get the air to do better, so keep up the awesome work!🙂👍
Stay safe

 

[RiaKoobcam]

So is this the end of the thread? Better cooling yields approx. 10% gains in sustained performance. End?

For performance? Absolutely. KPOM and others nailed it. For cooling? Almost there, the next step is probably someone trying a copper shim in their 2020 MBA heat sink and seeing if that improves temperatures. As long as they're aware that this will not improve CPU performance by any noticeable amount. Might make it more comfortable to use though.

It's definitely the end of the Max Tech 'connecting a heat pipe would have made it so much faster!'

Nope, the chip will only perform 10% better when cooled in the most aggressive ways, looks like it at or close to its Intel/Apple designed limits. If you think the heatsink is the performance bottleneck from turning this into a Macbook Pro, it's not.

It's probably not the end of 'my fans are annoying/my Macbook Air is too hot', as there are real benefits to increasing thermal conductivity between the CPU die and the heat sink. Looks like a copper mod is the best way to go, but nobody's tried that for a 2020.

Best results so far have come from multilayered thermal paste/aluminum catering dish sheet [cut to size] sandwich deal from one user.

Unless someone measures the dimensions of their heat sink, puts a shim of copper in there, reapplies thermal paste and is able to prove that it improves temperatures and cooling, then... yeah. That's pretty much the end of the thread.

 

[magbarn]

So is this the end of the thread? Better cooling yields approx. 10% gains in sustained performance. End?

Hey when idiots like me paid $150 more for the i7 and get less of a boost than a $0.05 copper shim....

 

[srkirt]

[QUOTE = "RiaKoobcam, publicación: 28394843, miembro: 1213283"]
Para el rendimiento? Absolutamente. KPOM y otros lo lograron. Para el enfriamiento? Casi allí, el siguiente paso es probablemente alguien probando una cuña de cobre en su disipador de calor 2020 MBA y viendo si eso mejora las temperaturas. Siempre y cuando sepan que esto no mejorará el rendimiento de la CPU en una cantidad notable . Sin embargo, podría hacerlo más cómodo de usar.

Definitivamente es el final de Max Tech '¡conectar una tubería de calor lo hubiera hecho mucho más rápido!'

No, el chip solo funcionará un 10% mejor cuando se enfríe de las formas más agresivas, se parece o está cerca de sus límites diseñados por Intel / Apple. Si crees que el disipador térmico es el cuello de botella de rendimiento de convertir esto en un Macbook Pro, no lo es.

Probablemente no sea el final de 'mis ventiladores son molestos / mi Macbook Air está demasiado caliente', ya que existen beneficios reales para aumentar la conductividad térmica entre el chip de la CPU y el disipador de calor. Parece que un mod de cobre es la mejor manera de hacerlo, pero nadie lo ha intentado para 2020.

Hasta ahora, los mejores resultados provienen de un sándwich de pasta de aluminio / pasta térmica multicapa para catering [cortado a medida] de un usuario.

A menos que alguien mida las dimensiones de su disipador de calor, coloque una cuña de cobre allí, vuelva a aplicar pasta térmica y pueda demostrar que mejora las temperaturas y el enfriamiento, entonces ... sí. Eso es más o menos el final del hilo.
[/CITAR]
Cobre 100%...

 

[ipos]

so topping up 300 dollars for a Macbook pro is a better choice?

 

[raymanh]

I'd wait for the 14".

But if I had to buy now I'd get the Pro. Brighter, P3 screen, better sustain performance, same size, only 7% heavier, more ports, only issue is the Air has a better keyboard.

 

[deeddawg]

so topping up 300 dollars for a Macbook pro is a better choice?

Depends on your needs/usage/budget.

For me, an MBA is a replacement of a 2015 rMB12 - light usage, highly portable.

I already have a 2018 MBP15 for heavy workload usage.

 

[KPOM]

I'd wait for the 14".

But if I had to buy now I'd get the Pro. Brighter, P3 screen, better sustain performance, same size, only 7% heavier, more ports, only issue is the Air has a better keyboard.

The base MacBook Pro also has only 2 TB3 ports. But it does have the other advantages you mention.

 

[deeddawg]

The base MacBook Pro also has only 2 TB3 ports. But it does have the other advantages you mention.

... and the base Macbook Pro also has a $400-500 higher price tag for the same memory/ssd configurations as the base MBA configs.

 

[KPOM]

... and the base Macbook Pro also has a $400-500 higher price tag for the same memory/ssd configurations as the base MBA configs.

True, but if Apple ups the next base Pro to 256GB then it could restore the $200 price differential. We’ll find out soon enough.

 

[AirBud]

Assuming my heatsink mod works, the 2020 i5 Air will have (barely) better single core performance than the 2019 i5 pro while the pro will have 35% better multi core performance. The GPU is about 25% slower than the Air. The price increase for a similar configuration would be 50% more.

For my uses, I don’t think paying 50% more for a better screen, worse keyboard, 25% worse GPU, and 35% better multi core performance is worth it.

Obviously these numbers will change with the 14”.

 

[agaskew]

I'm glad I'm not in the market for any of these at the moment. If choosing between the MBP13, 2020 Air and iPad Pro in front of me, the Air would be the least appealing.

 

[deeddawg]

I'm glad I'm not in the market for any of these at the moment. If choosing between the MBP13, 2020 Air and iPad Pro in front of me, the Air would be the least appealing.

That sort of question really is a matter of what you need to do with the thing.

For me the iPad Pro is a non-starter - it doesn't run certain macOS software I want to be able to run.

 

[kinchee87]

Again, sorry for not taking photos, although it wouldn't have help trying to get a measurement for the thickness of shim needed. I don't have a pair of digital calipers unfortunately. I do have a set of feeler gauges though, so I made another small piece of foil-paste-foil-paste-foil sandwich just now, and compared the best I could visually and by feel to the feeler gauges. My best guesstimate is that the thickness is about 0.35mm-0.40mm. It definitely feels smaller than 0.5mm, although a 0.5mm shim may still work. My concern with a shim any thicker than what I rigged up is that the screws securing the heatsink are very short, so there won't be many threads holding it in place, the thicker the sim, the fewer threads will grab. And speaking of screws, the bottom case ones are pentalobe, but the heatsink ones are torx, very small torx.

Cool, thanks for the rough estimates! I definitely need to order some thinner copper shims. The 0.6mm shims I got will definitely be too thick! Or maybe I could drop it in some vinegar to thin it down 🤔

Hopefully the iFixit Essential Electronics Toolkit that I ordered is enough.

Someone asked me for measurements, here I leave you these photos and the connector you have to disconnect to avoid having tension on the board.

Thanks for the measurements!