All these reviews on m1 pro and air and no comment on sustained performance..

[macddy]

Yes I know they showed a cinebench test for 30min on air and pro and we saw the air performance went down.. But no one talked about even longer work, like gaming, editing etc in many hours? I cant decide between the air and pro.. HELP

I'm gonna be using the laptop for mostly gaming and student work. AIr or pro for me?

 

[netv]

Well, it seemed pretty obvious to me. If it's full-load for under 10 minutes you're good with the Air. If goes over 10 minutes you'll need a fan (so, a Pro or the mini).

 

[revs]

I'd guess that gaming is considered sustained performance. Depends on the game though.

Wait a few days and see what people say about their machines - I can understand that you wouldnt want the Air if after 10-20min the performance drop caused an issue.

 

[macddy]

I'd guess that gaming is considered sustained performance. Depends on the game though.

Wait a few days and see what people say about their machines - I can understand that you wouldnt want the Air if after 10-20min the performance drop caused an issue.

Yeah and my follow up question would be if I play hours on end on the m1 air, will I eventually hurt the components inside as opposed to macbook pro?

 

[Serban55]

Nope. Since almost all intel mac the cpu could cap and stay at 92-100c and hurting not the components , now with the M1 apple is caping the chip at around 84-85c

 

[tarasis]

Well, it seemed pretty obvious to me. If it's full-load for under 10 minutes you're good with the Air. If goes over 10 minutes you'll need a fan (so, a Pro or the mini).

Based on the front page story regarding building Webkit. Theres a 5 minute difference on building (20m vs 25m for Pro vs Air), so even under load its not looking that bad. We really need longer throttle tests.

 

[macddy]

Based on the front page story regarding building Webkit. Theres a 5 minute difference on building (20m vs 25m for Pro vs Air), so even under load its not looking that bad. We really need longer throttle tests.

^^

 

[acousticbiker]

Not sure if video calls are considered as needing 'sustained performance' but my 2020 i5 8GB MBA slows down and has loud fan during video calls, which makes me wonder how an M1 8GB MBA does (does performance throttle during a video call due to lack of fan?)

 

[Chompineer]

Thermal equilibrium is eventually achieved, it's not a progressive downwards slope ad infinitum. 30 minutes of pegged performance is a fairly good indicator, especially given actual high intensity apps aren't 100% all the time.

 

[macddy]

Thermal equilibrium is eventually achieved, it's not a progressive downwards slope ad infinitum. 30 minutes of pegged performance is a fairly good indicator, especially given actual high intensity apps aren't 100% all the time.

Translated to english does that mean if I want to game on a macbook air m1 for 4-5 hours straight I shouldnt notice too much of a performance drop compared to pro?

 

[Chompineer]

Translated to english does that mean if I want to game on a macbook air m1 for 4-5 hours straight I shouldnt notice too much of a performance drop compared to pro?

It just means that eventually you've kind of saturated things and performance will stay relatively stable where it's at and won't keep dropping, as heat out and heat in to the system have roughly become constant.

 

[macddy]

It just means that eventually you've kind of saturated things and performance will stay relatively stable where it's at and won't keep dropping, as heat out and heat in to the system have roughly become constant.

Thank you for translating that for a stupid person like me Would you say the chip will wear faster over the years because of the passive cooling?

 

[Chompineer]

Thank you for translating that for a stupid person like me Would you say the chip will wear faster over the years because of the passive cooling?

Honestly not too sure. I wouldn't worry about it... Chips have insane lifespans these days. Look at all the old iPhones and iPads still in use. All passively cooled. More likely power management components fail far before a CPU.

 

[deeddawg]

Translated to english does that mean if I want to game on a macbook air m1 for 4-5 hours straight I shouldnt notice too much of a performance drop compared to pro?

Correct. Once it's heat soaked it's heat soaked. I'd be surprised if that took longer than 10-15 minutes. After which you're at equilibrium.

Think of the system like a sink that drains more slowly than the faucet can fill it. For a little while you can have the faucet on full blast, but then as the sink gets full you need to turn down to faucet to where it matches the drain's ability let water through. You're then in a stead-state. With the chips though instead of you turning down the faucet, the system does so automatically to whatever's necessary to prevent the sink from overflowing.

 

[deeddawg]

Thank you for translating that for a stupid person like me Would you say the chip will wear faster over the years because of the passive cooling?

Improbably. I'm assuming (hopefully correctly) that the engineers know what they're doing and designed for a system lifetime well in excess of what we're likely to need.

 

[bill-p]

Yes I know they showed a cinebench test for 30min on air and pro and we saw the air performance went down.. But no one talked about even longer work, like gaming, editing etc in many hours? I cant decide between the air and pro.. HELP

I'm gonna be using the laptop for mostly gaming and student work. AIr or pro for me?

As mentioned, with the Air, performance will probably drop gradually over 10 minutes, and then after that, it'll just stay at that level. Maybe you'll see faster drop if ambient temp is high enough, but I think it'll be on average about 10 minutes.

The Pro will be able to go max performance regardless of ambient temp, and it'll also be able to stay cooler overall because of the fan. This is echoed by multiple reviewers.

So from my perspective, the Pro has: better speakers, better mic, better battery life, better performance, better thermal.

The Air is... $200 - $300 cheaper and slightly lighter.

Just pick one based on your needs. I don't think you can go wrong with either one of them. I'll personally get the Pro just for peace of mind... knowing that if I need to run one of the pesky Intel apps via Rosetta 2, then I'm getting the maximum performance possible that M1 can give me at any time.

Also to note: most Mac games will probably have to run through Rosetta 2 for the time being. Apps may be updated, but games are rarely updated to support a new architecture.

 

[spindude]

Not sure if video calls are considered as needing 'sustained performance' but my 2020 i5 8GB MBA slows down and has loud fan during video calls, which makes me wonder how an M1 8GB MBA does (does performance throttle during a video call due to lack of fan?)

YES!!! I couldn't really find answer for this so I actually bought the PRO this morning from the store and received an AIR that I haven't opened yet (it just arrived but the delivery date said DEC 8th so I was expecting I could cancel the order!). I too have the same issue with the fan blazing 5 mins into a 2 hour Microsoft Teams call with my 2019 AIR and wonder if it will slow down or shut down if it gets too warm without a fan. Now debating returning the AIR unopened since I've seemingly got the PRO personalized again or test it out and possibly save the money and keep the gold, slimmer form factor....decisions!

 

[ssong]

Not sure if video calls are considered as needing 'sustained performance' but my 2020 i5 8GB MBA slows down and has loud fan during video calls, which makes me wonder how an M1 8GB MBA does (does performance throttle during a video call due to lack of fan?)

I think the M1 chips should cope better with this even if you were to use a Rosetta 2 translated app to run your video calls on, purely on the basis that M1 chips seem to do much better with video encoding and decoding due to the HW acceleration.

EDIT: Adding a link to another post where someone ran a 1 hr zoom call


Post in thread 'M1 Video Conferences Benchmarks (Skype, Zoom etc.)'
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...nchmarks-skype-zoom-etc.2269220/post-29264607

 

[spindude]

I think the M1 chips should cope better with this even if you were to use a Rosetta 2 translated app to run your video calls on, purely on the basis that M1 chips seem to do much better with video encoding and decoding due to the HW acceleration.

EDIT: Adding a link to another post where someone ran a 1 hr zoom call


Post in thread 'M1 Video Conferences Benchmarks (Skype, Zoom etc.)'
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...nchmarks-skype-zoom-etc.2269220/post-29264607

this is great for the pro, now to find someone doing the same thing with an AIR. FWIW I opened this PRO laptop at 9am with 73% battery and installed every app inc. office/teams, personalized settings, playing Apple Music in the background and worked all day - out of the box never plugged it in and just hit 43%!!!! mind blowing!