M1 , 8GB - I'm sure youre tired of seeing this one but here i am .

[Rainboots124]

i know this is asked a lot and i have read many reddit posts and others that havent been conclusive for my situation.

recently by 2015 air 8gb ram (bought 2015) is reaching its end. i thought it was to a point of nearly unusable because of the overheating. i was wrong because after 5 days of using a 2019 air 8gb ram, it cannot handle nearly what the 2015 did.

lacking a good sense of the topic, im going to give my specifics-
basically, will the 2020 m1 with 8gb PRO be able to handle the following:
- 1 browser window watching twitch streams or other videos
- 1 browser window with 2 tabs, a google sheets tab and a google docs (approx 100 page doc)
- discord app open
- (god forbid i open the freeform app, that one kills everything)

all without overheating or sounding like a wind tunnel after 10 minutes?
16gb isnt in my budget at the moment and want to know if the m1 8gb is truly more sufficient than the dual core i5 in the '19 air (or even the '15)

thanks!

 

[Apple_Robert]

Yes, the M1 Air is more than capable without getting hot or noisy. I did much more with my base M1 Air when I owned one and never had any problems.

 

[Al Rukh]

i know this is asked a lot and i have read many reddit posts and others that havent been conclusive for my situation.

recently by 2015 air 8gb ram (bought 2015) is reaching its end. i thought it was to a point of nearly unusable because of the overheating. i was wrong because after 5 days of using a 2019 air 8gb ram, it cannot handle nearly what the 2015 did.

lacking a good sense of the topic, im going to give my specifics-
basically, will the 2020 m1 with 8gb PRO be able to handle the following:
- 1 browser window watching twitch streams or other videos
- 1 browser window with 2 tabs, a google sheets tab and a google docs (approx 100 page doc)
- discord app open
- (god forbid i open the freeform app, that one kills everything)

all without overheating or sounding like a wind tunnel after 10 minutes?
16gb isnt in my budget at the moment and want to know if the m1 8gb is truly more sufficient than the dual core i5 in the '19 air (or even the '15)

thanks!

It should be able to handle your use-case. However, have you considered budgeting for a M2 MBA instead? Even an Apple-certified refurbished one?

 

[bousozoku]

My M1 MacBook Air is much more powerful than my quad-core i7 for photography and video production that you shouldn't have to worry about a similar machine doing what you need.

I would suggest a refurbished M1 with 16 GB of RAM, if you can afford it. There isn't any way to change the specifications afterward.

 

[gilby101]

1 browser window watching

You don't say which browser.

 

[okkibs]

Any apple silicon Mac can handle this just fine. The fan on the pro should remain inaudible. 8GiB might limit how long the device remains usable as apps nowadays seem to just gobble up memory.

 

[arcite]

I’d go for the M2 (even a refurbished one); the M1 chip is getting quite old, plus the M2 performance boost is worth a few extra bucks.

 

[smirking]

basically, will the 2020 m1 with 8gb PRO be able to handle the following:

Yes absolutely and then some. I test drove an 8GB 2020 M1 MBP by punishing it with my full workflow normally reserved for my 2018 32GB Vega20 MBP. It not only handled my full workflow, it stayed cool most of the time.

 

[Rainboots124]

You don't say which browser.

chrome ideally is what i use but willing to suffer with the awful usability of safari.

 

[Rainboots124]

I’d go for the M2 (even a refurbished one); the M1 chip is getting quite old, plus the M2 performance boost is worth a few extra bucks.

m1 is already me reaching past my budget unfortunately

 

[mrt.plt]

You'll be just fine with an M1 (and 8gigs of RAM)

 

[ipaqrat]

The workload seems well aligned for an 8 GB device. Modern Chrome got way better managing resources.

Is there a difference in grade of processor between the 2015 MBA (i5 up to 2.7 Ghz, or i7 up to 3.2 Ghz) and the 2019 MBA (i5 only from 1.6 Ghz to 3.6 Ghz)? The condition of the SSD might have a bearing, as NVRAM does wear out over time, and maybe the 2019 had a harder life before you got it. Using external monitors would take a bit more RAM for display driving, compounded by the difference in the Intel's 617 in the 2015, vs Intel's 6000 in 2019.

At the risk of compounding problems, has the 2019 had a clean rebuild? Or at least a scan with Malwarebytes? Had the 2015?

Tangentially, there were some fiendish security vulnerabilities back then, that might profoundly affect performance. With Intel's Core processor chip hardware, malicious code could sneak in through the CPU's predictive instruction branch caching. Those were Spectre (CVE-2017-5753, CVE-2017-5715) and Meltdown (CVE-2017-5754) (There are more similar vulns, even through today.)

The only fix at the time was/is to disable use of CPU's predictive instruction branch caching features. That stomped on performance pretty hard; worse in some cases more than others. Perhaps the 2019 MBA was affected, while the 2015 MBA wasn't (or wasn't patched)? I don't recall a performance change in my MBPs of the time.

An M1 wouldn't be affected by Intel's baggage, but Apple and ARM have plenty of their own.

 

[gilby101]

chrome ideally is what i use but willing to suffer with the awful usability of safari.

Chrome is renowned (accurately or not, I don't know) as a memory hog. But much depends on what you are running in each open tab.

You also mentioned the Discord app. This is an Electron based app and so may use a fair chunk of memory - others with direct experience may like to comment.

 

[saudor]

the Air 16 might be worth considering if the price is similar to a 8gb pro

 

[JustAnExpat]

I have a MacBook Air, M1, 8GB.

>- 1 browser window watching twitch streams or other videos
Yep, easily.

>- 1 browser window with 2 tabs, a google sheets tab and a google docs (approx 100 page doc)
Yep, easily

>discord app open

I have no idea what that is, sorry

>freeform

Easily.

Of course, more ram is always better, but my M1 is doing great.

 

[jav6454]

chrome ideally is what i use but willing to suffer with the awful usability of safari.

Chrome is known as a memory hog. At 8GB, it might be stretching resources. Just to give you an example, having Youtube open on Safari is the ~200MB for Safari and ~450MB for the YT tab, that's without loading a video.