M2 MacBook Air | 2160p HEVC video encoding & Plex Server

[Jim Lahey]

Hello. Fairly straightforward. How would people rate the new M2 MacBook Air for these primary uses? Obviously the Plex Server is a walk in the park but I’m wondering how a fanless M2 is likely to cope with dozens of hours of contiguous 4K HDR video encoding. My guess is probably not very well.

Opinions welcome 👍

 

[Gnattu]

Isn't a Mac Mini better for this use case? You don't need the battery, the keyboard, the trackpad and the screen for a media server.

 

[Jim Lahey]

Isn't a Mac Mini better for this use case? You don't need the battery, the keyboard, the trackpad and the screen for a media server.

It’s an option for sure, but I also need a portable device for other uses. Considering all options at the moment but just looking to get a read on estimated fanless M2 sustained performance prior to benchmarks.

 

[jav6454]

Hello. Fairly straightforward. How would people rate the new M2 MacBook Air for these primary uses? Obviously the Plex Server is a walk in the park but I’m wondering how a fanless M2 is likely to cope with dozens of hours of contiguous 4K HDR video encoding. My guess is probably not very well.

Opinions welcome 👍

Not very well.

1. The M2 will throttle under heavy loads due to the passive system
2. The M2 runs hotter and consumes more power which leads to faster throttling

 

[Jim Lahey]

Not very well.

1. The M2 will throttle under heavy loads due to the passive system
2. The M2 runs hotter and consumes more power which leads to faster throttling

Thanks. Pretty much what I imagined might be the case. Still a lovely machine but sadly not suited for what I'd use it for.

 

[chrfr]

Not very well.

1. The M2 will throttle under heavy loads due to the passive system
2. The M2 runs hotter and consumes more power which leads to faster throttling

To be clear, these are just guesses at this point. Nobody who knows this information has reported anything publicly.

 

[jav6454]

To be clear, these are just guesses at this point. Nobody who knows this information has reported anything publicly.

They are not guesses. Apple's own graphs state that the M2 consumes more power than an M2 at idle and that power draw carries forward when under load. Hence, more power draw means more heat to dissipate.

 

[Captain_Mac]

If that's your only use case, the MBP 13' M2 has an active cooling system and is the same price. It can surely sustain the load.

 

[Jim Lahey]

If that's your only use case, the MBP 13' M2 has an active cooling system and is the same price. Is can surely sustain the load.

Also an option but that form factor is getting on a bit now and, while not a deciding factor, I wouldn't really want to spend money going down that road. I'll probably just stick with what I'm already using. If I'm honest with myself I was just looking to see if a Midnight MacBook Air could find a place in my life 😍

 

[altaic]

They are not guesses. Apple's own graphs state that the M2 consumes more power than an M2 at idle and that power draw carries forward when under load. Hence, more power draw means more heat to dissipate.

The chassis was redesigned, so it would be reasonable to expect that the thermals have been improved. Until people take delivery and run tests, recommendations like that are guesses.

 

[jav6454]

The chassis was redesigned, so it would be reasonable to expect that the thermals have been improved. Until people take delivery and run tests, recommendations like that are guesses.

Heat creation is directly related and correlated to power consumption increase in any and all chips. The upgraded chassis might give you a minute or so more, but the throttle will happen as the design is fanless.

 

[Captain_Mac]

Also an option but that form factor is getting on a bit now and, while not a deciding factor, I wouldn't really want to spend money going down that road. I'll probably just stick with what I'm already using. If I'm honest with myself I was just looking to see if a Midnight MacBook Air could find a place in my life 😍

Completely agree with you. I don't recommend the 13' to anyone at this moment. Only referenced it because it seemed to me that sustained load work was something important for you
And you can always find a place for it, your wallet might not like it tho Joking aside, maybe we get surprised with the reviews... If not, there's always something better around the corner, maybe you can wait for a little longer

 

[Mcdevidr]

Doesn’t notebook check aDN others show the throttling to be 8-12% in sustained loads. In any case id just run a noctua fan under it if i were gonna keep it in place under sustained load then when you dont need that you have a nice fanless portable to carry around.

 

[aperfectcircle]

Hello. Fairly straightforward. How would people rate the new M2 MacBook Air for these primary uses? Obviously the Plex Server is a walk in the park but I’m wondering how a fanless M2 is likely to cope with dozens of hours of contiguous 4K HDR video encoding. My guess is probably not very well.

Opinions welcome 👍

Do you mean serving up 4K content via Plex, or are you talking about video editing work? If the former, I had the M1 Air and had zero issues with hours of 4K HDR streaming to my ATV 4K, and that was before Plex released an Apple Silicon beta.

Love the username BTW

 

[altaic]

Heat creation is directly related and correlated to power consumption increase in any and all chips. The upgraded chassis might give you a minute or so more, but the throttle will happen as the design is fanless.

Yeah I know about thermodynamics. Anyway, the M1 Air’s SoC was not thermally connected to the chassis and had nowhere for the heat to go. The M2 Air’s chassis has more than 400 sq in of surface area that could be utilized as a convective heatsink.

Until the M2 ships, no one outside of Apple knows if the thermals are crippled. Doubling down on how sure you are about your guess doesn’t make it not a guess.

 

[Jim Lahey]

Do you mean serving up 4K content via Plex, or are you talking about video editing work? If the former, I had the M1 Air and had zero issues with hours of 4K HDR streaming to my ATV 4K, and that was before Plex released an Apple Silicon beta.

Love the username BTW

The Plex Server is just streaming data from a couple of NAS boxes on my LAN, through the Mac and out to my clients, so that’s fairly light work for any half modern system. But the same machine is and will be used for encoding many contiguous hours of 2160p video. That’s clearly going to be a much harder sell for any passively cooled processor.

 

[altaic]

The Plex Server is just streaming data from a couple of NAS boxes on my LAN, through the Mac and out to my clients, so that’s fairly light work for any half modern system. But the same machine is and will be used for encoding many contiguous hours of 2160p video. That’s clearly going to be a much harder sell for any passively cooled processor.

Regarding encoding, it depends on the your constraints (fidelity, real-time, bit rate, etc.). If you can get away with hardware encode, then it’d probably be fine. If you require better quality, compression, or need real-time encoding, it’ll probably struggle with software encoding.

 

[jav6454]

Yeah I know about thermodynamics. Anyway, the M1 Air’s SoC was not thermally connected to the chassis and had nowhere for the heat to go. The M2 Air’s chassis has more than 400 sq in of surface area that could be utilized as a convective heatsink.

Until the M2 ships, no one outside of Apple knows if the thermals are crippled. Doubling down on how sure you are about your guess doesn’t make it not a guess.

The heat making part is not a guess. The throttling is as we have no idea how it's setup.