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First Benchmark Result Surfaces for MacBook Air With M3 Chip
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I’m still on an intel based Mac from 2015. I wonder how the benchmark scores would compare between mine the new MacBook Air M3. 🤔
I've always said the best Windows computer is a Mac running VMware, Parallels or Remote Desktop.
In the article, they compared the speed of two machines. I want to know the SSD configurations of those two machines in the test.
For most people multiple external monitors are not an issue. I always used one, but have now switched to two and I don't see myself going back.
That's the real story over time IMO
The massive hype about ASi was mostly because of switching from Intel.
Since then, it's been a pretty modest, but stable, improvement YoY
I sure wouldn't rush to dump anything M1 for this personally.
You're good until at least M5 I'd bet
Why would you want to know the SSD configuration of those two Macs?
The article doesn’t say, nor does the Geekbench results page list storage info of the tested machine.
Challenge accepted!
| Geekbench 6 | 2015 MBP (15-inch) | M3 MacBook Air |
| Single-Core | 963 | 3157 |
| Multi-Core | 3395 | 12020 |
| Metal GPU | 12565 | 46870 |
Summary: M3 Air is 3.5x faster than your MacBook Pro. Not to mention the display has significantly improved in all ways (contrast, color, brightness); is no longer loud and hot (for no reason); and is light weight for its size. I mean upgrade already!
EDIT: And longer battery life.
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Amazing how little these benchmarks can tell an average user about how it will be to actually use and what is "worth it" to spend money on or not.
My 2015 15" MBP flies through all the office work and day to day browsing I use it for ...with no fan noise, no issues..
Sure doesn't have the modern battery life, that's no question.
An enormous amount of what makes any/all Macs in the last 15 years "feel fast" is simply having an SSD
Because some of the people thinking of upgrading have an Intel Mac...
Remember, NOT EVERYONE IN THE WORLD IS THE SAME AS YOU...
You're not wrong.
If I'm just using Text Edit or Office products for that matter—then benchmark results won't say much—since static, text based apps aren't using the CPU while the app just sits there.
But if I'm working in Adobe Indesign, Illustrator, and Lightroom simultaneously, with Chrome and other apps running, and editing large art files, and I need the CPU to not get in the way of creative flow, the benchmarks say a lot. I also don't want fans on, and my thighs to warm from the heat (which my 2014 15-inch MBP did whenever I was working in my Adobe apps).
Also the benchmark improvements say a lot about battery life. For instance, if the M3 Air loads an app 3.5x faster, that means the CPU is going to return to idle faster. It means it's going to index your storage when you download a file 3.5x faster, which means it returns to idle faster. The MacBook Air needs to return to an idle state as quickly as it can because that is where it can remain in low wattage and ride into long battery life.
Something being 20% faster? No big deal.
Something being 250% faster? Very big deal.
I guess… i’ve used M2 and M1 airs extensively and the benchmarked speed increases simply don’t move the needle for how I use laptops..
I’ll bet something similar is true for a ton of just day-to-day browsing and office users
Battery life for sure though!
Well I’m still deciding between the 15” M3 MBA and 14” M3 MBP. Either one I’m getting at least 16Gb and 1TB SSD. Is the MBA display really that much better than my 15” MBP?
This tactic is a revenue generator. As we know, the minimum SSD per-chip capacity keeps on increasing, so there is no going back. 128GB x2 allows striping the two as a 256GB RAID-0. Since 128GB is no longer available in quantity, 256GB is the minimum (single chip). Going to 512 is the natural choice for those who demand performance.
Knowing that 8GB/256GB combination is deficient today or would be in the next three years, it's a perfect tool to get people to buy things on the cheap just to get by, then buy another one when it becomes intolerably slow or premature death of the SSD. It's a perfect excuse to sell these short-lived systems for the sake of future profit. It's rather short sighted.
Thats incorrect. From the article:
The M3 chip in the new MacBook Air therefore scored approximately 20% more in single-core and 18% more in multi-core compared to the M2 chip in the earlier model, and is on par with the M3 chip in the 14-inch MacBook Pro as far as straight CPU benchmarks go.
So same performance. At least for short bursty work that doesn't saturate the CPU/GPU. When that happens, the MacBook Pro with one fan and better heat sink will give it the advantage.I call BS.
In what world is someone with a 256 GB drive in a MacBook Air going to go, "wow, my laptop is slow due to drive speed, I need to upgrade."
1500 MB/s is 3x faster than most anybody needs storage. It opens a 1 GB file in a fraction of a second. Most people are dealing in files that are MB in size.
The people ingesting terabytes of 8K footage aren't buying 256 GB drives, and not MacBook Airs.
Sure. For office work, a 10-year old Dell is fine, as is a 2012 iMac or Mac mini.
What you're bringing up is exactly why 50% of customers are still using Intel Macs, and why Apple is targeting them in promotional copy. Most people are happy with their old Mac since it's mostly productivity and web browsing. Apple is trying to incite a little FOMO.
If you do sustained processing tasks (eg. something that takes 10 minutes or more), and you do it all day every day, then get the MBP with M3 Pro or M2 Pro, especially since it comes already stock with 16 or 18 GB RAM. Otherwise get the Air with M2 chip or M3 chip, and spec it up with 16 GB RAM.
Getting the MacBook Pro with the simple M3 chip is a little ridiculous at MSRP since it only has one fan (not two) and the price difference isn't far from the better one with M3 Pro chip, especially when you spec it up t0 16 GB RAM. But less ridiculous if you can get it on a deep discount.
The Air display is better than 2015 MBP display, but how much you notice is user dependent. If you look at Gmail all day—then 10-bit, 1400:1 contrast, and DCI P3 color space won't matter one bit. Maybe increased brightness will matter if you're in a sunny room and you need to brighten the display to fight those reflections you see in the glossy glass; but if you weren't maxing out brightness before, then 100 extra nits won't matter.
What you will notice, or how your experience will improve, is hard to say.
If you're a photographer, or edit video, then I would say it's better. But for productivity, I don't think you'll notice. Still, it's good to know that Apple's adoption in display technology have kept up to modern standards.
We've reached the point where the CPU advances aren't super important to most people... maybe less so than RAM and storage upgrades for many. If you've got a device with an M1/Pro/Max then you're probably good for a while, and if anything it's going to be storage or RAM increases that are as likely to temp you into a new device in the future.
Its going to be increasingly hard for Apple to sell new devices to people with Apple silicone in coming years, which is probably why they hope artificial restrictions on dirt cheap RAM and storage (that are non-upgradable) force people to purchase new devices.
It's the same with iPhones... it's getting harder and harder to produce meaningful updates to hardware now that the technology is mature.