Me too. In fact, I have one currently being shipped.
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M2 Air help - 8 or 16 GB?
- Thread starter GabbiDB
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I know several very intense big name colleges where spelling is important at the professor level. To get a job on the faculty you will have to pass more than one written test before being hired. If you can't pass these tests, you don't get the job. If only we did the same thing for people who want to have a gun. After all, many would argue that making a mistake with a gun has much bigger consequence.
If it’s in budget, I’d go with 16GB. I think it depends on how long you plan to keep your machine, more than workflow.
When I bought a MacBook in 2010, it had 2GB RAM and a 250Gb HDD. I got ten years of service out of it only because I could upgrade the ram and swap in an SSD, so it could keep up, which it did.
I’m about to order an M2 Air myself and I’m going to go with the 8CPU/10GPU, 16Gb of RAM, and a 512Gb SSD. It’s a lot of scratch to cough up in one go (with AppleCare in Canadian almost $2700 after taxes) but I plan on keeping it at least 7 years as a minimum. So it works out in the end va buying something I have to replace sooner.
Hope you figure out what works best for you!
gta v last i check was pushing 80-90gb for install, BF1 is 40-50gb, you gonna need 512gb storage and 16gb ram to handle that load, at that price point, you might as well get the 14inch mbp base. if you live in the us amazon, walmart, costco have that 14 base for 1599.
I would recommend 8 core gpu, 16gb ram and 512gb ssd. That is the sweet spot. See if you can qualify for the student discount.
If you can splurge then maybe 24gb ram would be a good idea but I don't think it is really needed.
These new M2 MBA are really nice and the ability to have a very fast device that is fanless is really nice. No vents to block and since the cpu inside is essentially sealed in the case dust should never be an issue.
The MBA is super light yet feels super solid. It has great speakers and again no grills so there is nothing to get dirty. The screen is very color accurate and bright. Magsafe is very nice to have. The new design is also really cool.
Overall this is one of the best MBA Apple has ever made and since you prioritize mobility you will really enjoy it.
The "Pro" models are significantly heavier but if a "Pro" model is something you might consider I would wait to see what the M2 MBP 14/16" to be announced costs and if it is something you want to consider. Deals abound on the older M1 MBP but also there are more sales for the M2 MBA and even with higher configs.
Now the choice is what color?
If you can splurge then maybe 24gb ram would be a good idea but I don't think it is really needed.
These new M2 MBA are really nice and the ability to have a very fast device that is fanless is really nice. No vents to block and since the cpu inside is essentially sealed in the case dust should never be an issue.
The MBA is super light yet feels super solid. It has great speakers and again no grills so there is nothing to get dirty. The screen is very color accurate and bright. Magsafe is very nice to have. The new design is also really cool.
Overall this is one of the best MBA Apple has ever made and since you prioritize mobility you will really enjoy it.
The "Pro" models are significantly heavier but if a "Pro" model is something you might consider I would wait to see what the M2 MBP 14/16" to be announced costs and if it is something you want to consider. Deals abound on the older M1 MBP but also there are more sales for the M2 MBA and even with higher configs.
Now the choice is what color?
Most people would agree with me that the 8-Core GPU, 16GBs of RAM, and 512 GB SSD is the sweet spot for the M2 MacBook Air.
The slight increase in short term burst performance is not worth the extra cost, shorter battery life, and detrimental performance for tasks that aren’t over in a few minutes and the gpu has to throttle more than an 8-core would.
This. Unfortunately the passive cooling system in the M2 Air isn’t a match for the extra heat the additional GPU cores make, the system ends up thermally soaked, and then throttling kicks in hard to counter that. The 8 core doesn’t get as hot out of the gate so the throttling is less severe, and the performance in long haul tasks becomes a wash. It’s been hashed out a lot over on YouTube with folks pitting the 8 and 10 core against each other. I was going to opt for the 10 core until I found out.
Any links? Not maxtech. Anyone else? I saw one that tested with a game but the results were cherry picked when they stopped the test as soon as the FPS on the 10 core dropped below the 8 core. Instead they should have let it continue until both computers were heat soaked and then compared average FPS.
Notebookcheck is the holy grail of technical reviews.
Apple MacBook Air M2 review - The faster 10-core GPU isn't worth it
Notebookcheck tests the new MacBook Air M2 with 16 GB of RAM, 1-TB SSD, and the faster 10-core GPU.
Didn’t all their tests show that the 10 core GPU was faster than the 8 core? I have no problem with their conclusion that the 10 core wasn’t worth the cost but I don’t think they showed the 10 clots slower than the 8 core.Notebookcheck is the holy grail of technical reviews.
Apple MacBook Air M2 review - The faster 10-core GPU isn't worth it
Notebookcheck tests the new MacBook Air M2 with 16 GB of RAM, 1-TB SSD, and the faster 10-core GPU.www.notebookcheck.net
I don’t trust maxtech on the M2.
The second video is just poorly done testing. He tests a Rosetta 2 game and gets the same framerate on the 8 and 10 core and then stops without trying to discover why. What he should have done is run the tests back to back until the average framerate stays steady and then see if the 8 core is faster. The number of frames rendered difference was negligible so it is hard to say that the 10 core was slower. Very slightly in one particular test at best.
I’m not arguing that the 10 core is worth the cost. Just that it doesn’t seem to be actually slower.
Agree the 8-core(16GB/512GB) is the sweet-spot config.
Disagree that the 10-core is useless. Depends on what you do. Gaming, pretty small advantage. GPU compute, some workflows do their GPU tasks in forms of shorter bursts and feature no sustained load - notable advantage.
OP's use of Affinity could be a case of the latter, but since the work is described as "light" I'd say it's probably not worth it anyway.
Disagree that the 10-core is useless. Depends on what you do. Gaming, pretty small advantage. GPU compute, some workflows do their GPU tasks in forms of shorter bursts and feature no sustained load - notable advantage.
OP's use of Affinity could be a case of the latter, but since the work is described as "light" I'd say it's probably not worth it anyway.
Unless you are on Dosdude1's level you're likely not going to be able to upgrade storage on these devices as it is soldered.
Well storage can be upgraded externally. You can't do that with RAM.
Annoyingly that seems to be the case
I need it for graphic design and light rendering and it's super hard to justify the upgraded MBA, because the 14" would be significantly better in every metric except portability (which I don't even need that much). It's easier if you just don't need the power and can just get the default 8/256 MBA.In my case I'll probably just wait for the 14" M2.
lol be-careful, alot of mba owners in this section would take issue with that statement. some would even claim the mba speakers are "louder" and the screen on the mbp is inferior because it suffers from "blooming"
I'd probably go for the 16GB RAM model if you're looking for long term performance. The SSD speed differences will make much less of a difference than the RAM will (the SSD differences will matter less anyway when swap is not being used as much).
I think considering your use case waiting for the 14" M2 would be the best idea. It should be considerably faster in gpu over the M1 MBP 14", have better battery life and be about 10-15% faster in CPU.Annoyingly that seems to be the case
In my case I'll probably just wait for the 14" M2.
The M2 MBA is a great laptop for most people but once you start doing professional workloads like graphic design and rendering then the M2 MBP will be much faster and sustain that for extended period of times. The screen should also be better for graphic design and possibly be improved over the original mini led.
We should see the new M2 MBP being announced soon hopefully.
Alternatively another forum member posted a deal on Microcenter. I don't know if you live in the states or if you do, near a Microcenter but they had a really high spec M1 MBP 14" with M1 Max and 64gb ram and 1tb ssd at around $2499 and at that price it may be worth considering the M1 MBP over M2. I would prefer the newer MBP but if you can get a maxed out version for the price of a just over base model it might be worth it? Just check out the MBP forum and you will see a thread there on the subject.
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