Macbook Air M2, a few questions to users

[pierrespartan]

Hi everyone,

I'm quite interested by the new Macbook Air M2 (my current model is a MBP 13 inch 2015, Intel) for having a lighter and faster machine (+ the great form factor, I admit).

Of course as plenty of us have already seen, there are some reviews online showing heavy workload leading to some thermal throttling. Although I do expect that in a fanless machine, I don't really know what to expect here for my specific use. I have to mention, my Intel gets quite hot just by indexing Spotlight or indexing Python packages via PyCharm...

So here a couple of usage I would do with this Macbook Air M2. If you guys already have this machine, perhaps you can tell me how it performs, especially in term of temperature I would say:

* I'm developer coding mainly on Sublime Text and PyCharm (just coding and running scripts, not building). Although the first one is light, PyCharm makes my current Intel MBP getting quite hot, when indexing or just running simple codes (involving matrices operations, etc... ). How this would perform on the M2 chip in this new MBA? Do you think it could stay cool? Or maybe not going above 90-95 °C?

* I'm not interested by recent AAA games (MBA isn't made for that anyway), but I do enjoy some indie games as well as some 'old AAA' games. For instance, I'm wondering how could the new Air run Dirt 4 with High settings, would it get hot as well for that quite old game? To give you an idea, my current Intel MBP would reach 100° easily even with medium settings for that particular game.

That's it! If you guys can help me figuring this out, that would be awesome. And any comments or specific review about the M2 Macbook Air experience are almost welcome too.

Cheers

 

[barracuda156]

There are some suggestions that it could be slower in some tasks than M1 version due to a slower SSD. (No personal experience, also interested in fact.)

 

[pierrespartan]

There are some suggestions that it could be slower in some tasks than M1 version due to a slower SSD. (No personal experience, also interested in fact.)

Thank you for your input. Indeed, base model (with 256 Gb of SSD) has a single NAND chip, compared to 2 NAND on previous models. But if you grab the 512 Gb SSD version (or above), you get the 2 NAND, so this one isn't slower than the previous M1 models.

 

[Tagbert]

Hi everyone,

I'm quite interested by the new Macbook Air M2 (my current model is a MBP 13 inch 2015, Intel) for having a lighter and faster machine (+ the great form factor, I admit).

Of course as plenty of us have already seen, there are some reviews online showing heavy workload leading to some thermal throttling. Although I do expect that in a fanless machine, I don't really know what to expect here for my specific use. I have to mention, my Intel gets quite hot just by indexing Spotlight or indexing Python packages via PyCharm...

So here a couple of usage I would do with this Macbook Air M2. If you guys already have this machine, perhaps you can tell me how it performs, especially in term of temperature I would say:

* I'm developer coding mainly on Sublime Text and PyCharm (just coding and running scripts, not building). Although the first one is light, PyCharm makes my current Intel MBP getting quite hot, when indexing or just running simple codes (involving matrices operations, etc... ). How this would perform on the M2 chip in this new MBA? Do you think it could stay cool? Or maybe not going above 90-95 °C?

* I'm not interested by recent AAA games (MBA isn't made for that anyway), but I do enjoy some indie games as well as some 'old AAA' games. For instance, I'm wondering how could the new Air run Dirt 4 with High settings, would it get hot as well for that quite old game? To give you an idea, my current Intel MBP would reach 100° easily even with medium settings for that particular game.

That's it! If you guys can help me figuring this out, that would be awesome. And any comments or specific review about the M2 Macbook Air experience are almost welcome too.

Cheers

From the performance tests that I have seen, you really have to hammer the CPUs and GPUs to get the M2 to throttle. I don’t see anything in your use cases that are likely to do that. It will certainly not throttle on the kinds of tasks that would slow down an Intel MBP. The M# Macs are worlds better than those Intel Macs in that regard.

I do recommend that you upgrade to 16GB RAM and at least 512GB SSD. That base model is really for people with basic, more single-tasking needs.

 

[Toutou]

How this would perform on the M2 chip in this new MBA? Do you think it could stay cool? Or maybe not going above 90-95 °C?

I use RubyMine (also a JetBrains product similar to PyCharm) to write Ruby apps (similar performance characteristics to Python), on a M1 Air and the temps rarely climb above 40 °C during normal "write code for a couple of minutes, run, check, write more code" work.
So unless Apple absolutely botched the cooling on the M2 Air, I don't think you'll see any problems whatsoever.

For instance, I'm wondering how could the new Air run Dirt 4 with High settings, would it get hot as well for that quite old game? To give you an idea, my current Intel MBP would reach 100° easily even with medium settings for that particular game.

Your current Intel machine hits 100 °C under heavy load because that's roughly its maximum safe operating temperature.
Both the M1 and the M2 chips will also hit 100 °C under heavy load because it's roughly their maximum safe temperature.

The way most game engines work is that they run the rendering loop as fast as possible, so no matter how old the game is (and independently on the graphics settings, which just vary the amount of computation needed per frame), the GPU will usually work at 90-100 % most of the time, unless the game is CPU-bound or unless you find a way to make sure that the engine doesn't chew through frames as fast as possible for no good reason.

One way to make sure is to limit the FPS manually via some ingame setting (some games allow you to do that, like Minecraft or Euro Truck Simulator 2), the other way is even more straightforward -- enabling VSync. What VSync does is that it tells the game engine to only render new frames at the exact moments when the screen is actually able to receive and display them. This has a nice side effect of basically locking the FPS to the display refresh rate -- since the screen is only ready to display new images 60 times a second, the engine doesn't need to render any more than 60 images a second. Which, if the machine is otherwise able to render say 120 images per second, causes the GPU load to roughly halve.

The takeaway is this: If you want a computer to stay cool while gaming, you need both to decrease the graphics settings so that the game could theoretically run at much more FPS than necessary, and to limit the amount of FPS being rendered by the game (manually or by enabling VSync)

 

[ascender]

The Verge podcast review made the point that even when throttling, some of their tasks would still finish quicker on an M2 Air compared to the M1 Air.

Only gaming I've done on the M2 Air so far is FM22 which runs just as well as it does on a 16" M1 Pro. Match engine is running at max detail and is very smooth. Only difference is that the machine gets a bit warm.

I don't code unfortunately.

 

[ADGrant]

Thank you for your input. Indeed, base model (with 256 Gb of SSD) has a single NAND chip, compared to 2 NAND on previous models. But if you grab the 512 Gb SSD version (or above), you get the 2 NAND, so this one isn't slower than the previous M1 models.

Once you add 16GB and a 512GB SSD to the M2 MBA, you are close to the street price of a 14" MBP which has a much better screen, more ports, better speakers and a proper cooling system.

 

[pierrespartan]

From the performance tests that I have seen, you really have to hammer the CPUs and GPUs to get the M2 to throttle. I don’t see anything in your use cases that are likely to do that. It will certainly not throttle on the kinds of tasks that would slow down an Intel MBP. The M# Macs are worlds better than those Intel Macs in that regard.

I do recommend that you upgrade to 16GB RAM and at least 512GB SSD. That base model is really for people with basic, more single-tasking needs.

Thanks @Tagbert for your input. Indeed I would take the 16Gb RAM ans 1To to be safe for at least 5 years from now or more.

I use RubyMine (also a JetBrains product similar to PyCharm) to write Ruby apps (similar performance characteristics to Python), on a M1 Air and the temps rarely climb above 40 °C during normal "write code for a couple of minutes, run, check, write more code" work.
So unless Apple absolutely botched the cooling on the M2 Air, I don't think you'll see any problems whatsoever.

[...]

The takeaway is this: If you want a computer to stay cool while gaming, you need both to decrease the graphics settings so that the game could theoretically run at much more FPS than necessary, and to limit the amount of FPS being rendered by the game (manually or by enabling VSync)

Thank you @Toutou . It's nice to have a comparison with another JetBrains product. Indeed, for gaming (old games) I always try to cap the fps at 60 fps (+VSync), it's way sufficient for me.

The Verge podcast review made the point that even when throttling, some of their tasks would still finish quicker on an M2 Air compared to the M1 Air.

Only gaming I've done on the M2 Air so far is FM22 which runs just as well as it does on a 16" M1 Pro. Match engine is running at max detail and is very smooth. Only difference is that the machine gets a bit warm.

I don't code unfortunately.

Thanks @ascender . Good to know about FM22 (I guess it is Football Manager), as I would be interested playing other simulation games like OOTP for instance. So getting a bit warm is ok for me, what I don't want is the machine boiling during a long time while playing.

Once you add 16GB and a 512GB SSD to the M2 MBA, you are close to the street price of a 14" MBP which has a much better screen, more ports, better speakers and a proper cooling system.

Thank you for your suggestion @ADGrant . For sure this configuration gets closer to the MPB one. But on the downside, what I strongly consider, are two things:
1. Portability, I would prefer the lighter MBA compare to the Pro as I spent time in transportations, etc...
2. In noticed that, with my current MPB 2105, typing all day on it sometimes leads to some pain in my wrists, because of the height of the keyboard. You could tell me, fine, take the Apple keyboard with the better form factor, of course yes, but as I said, for portability it would be better for me to have a machine that matches light weight + good form factor for typing all day long. Hence my choice regarding this new Air.

Thank you all for your help and experiences. I guess I'll stick with the 1To, 16 Gb of RAM MBA M2, as it seems well indicated to my needs.

 

[vasim]

The M2 MBP base model running PHPStorm together with XCODE with simulator, Safari (Many tabs), Pixelmator, Outlook, Spark, Navicat and other smaller programs open, here with 37oC degrees it is not cool but it is also not hot. It's temperature is near the outside temp. No throttling by the way. Hope I helped.

 

[pierrespartan]

The M2 MBP base model running PHPStorm together with XCODE with simulator, Safari (Many tabs), Pixelmator, Outlook, Spark, Navicat and other smaller programs open, here with 37oC degrees it is not cool but it is also not hot. It's temperature is near the outside temp. No throttling by the way. Hope I helped.

Indeed, that's helped me a lot too, thank you @vasim . I'm also a Pixelmator user, and on my Intel MBP 40 sec of ML to enhance the image puts the T° above 90°C... I'm really glad to see those great performances on the M2 MBP (XCODE + Simulator + other stuffs at the same time), meaning that even on the Air M2, this shouldn't be an issue in term of T°.

 

[vasim]

Indeed, that's helped me a lot too, thank you @vasim . I'm also a Pixelmator user, and on my Intel MBP 40 sec of ML to enhance the image puts the T° above 90°C... I'm really glad to see those great performances on the M2 MBP (XCODE + Simulator + other stuffs at the same time), meaning that even on the Air M2, this shouldn't be an issue in term of T°.

The reason that I replaced my MBA 2015 (except the obsolesce) with the old-fashioned MBP 13 M2 is that It has a fan. My thought is that the Air M2 throttling will be a fact and I could be avoided to MBP M2