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bobcomer

macrumors 601
May 18, 2015
4,949
3,699
Lower-end MBPs are basically MBAs with a fan. There is space for everyone in the apple universe.
I went desktop instead. (Studio Max) :)

If the 14" MBP didn't have a notch, I probably would have went with it as soon as I figured out I didn't like the Air.
 

ian87w

macrumors G3
Feb 22, 2020
8,704
12,638
Indonesia
I'd just like to chime in and saying having tested both the M1 MBA and M2 MBA, the M2 can throttle to the point it's worse than the M1 MBA. Especially in lightroom when exporting images. 17 mins on the M2 to export some compressed images compared to 11 minutes on the M1. Granted the slower drive will also play apart here, but nonetheless it throttles more noticeablely than its predecessor in quite a lot of things. The M2 Air will give you a few mins of M2 MBP performance and then absolutely tank. The M1 does also throttle, but it's not very obvious.
If you have the base model, I would put that due to the neutered SSD. The SoC can only work as fast as the data coming in and out, and that's being bottlenecked by the SSD.

And at this point, it just shows how good the M1 was. Thus if one was looking for base model, the M1 Macbook Air imo is the better deal.
 
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Love-hate 🍏 relationship

macrumors 68040
Sep 19, 2021
3,057
3,235
Yep and Apple did not use a heatsink cause it's thin. It's an AIR afterall that is thinner than the M1 Air. Heatsinks do lessen throttling but do not 100% prevent it.

The M1 Air had a heatsink as it was thicker and the M1 Air still throttled. Apple even said the M2 13" Pro was the one for sustained workloads.
is the m2 air too thin ?
 

MauiPa

macrumors 68040
Apr 18, 2018
3,438
5,084
Nope. the videos online make it that everyone is shocked the M2 Air thottles
idiots, I guess. Even the M1 MBA throttles under load - been reported for years, so dah! That has always been the biggest reason for the 13 MBP - active cooling. The fact that it got only a modest update seems to say that the M2 MBP is the last we will see of that form factor
 

throAU

macrumors G3
Feb 13, 2012
9,199
7,354
Perth, Western Australia
I think that the users who are complaining about the 256GB SSD speed are really more edge case users specific to this site who tend to always complain about price but aren’t really going to buy the 256GB model. Maybe they’re buying a second machine and feel cheated, I don’t know.

Id go further.

I'd say the people complaining are spec sheet racing and have no idea what they're talking about with regards to
  1. real world performance impact
  2. context of this product in the market place
As i said above, for this product it is a non-issue. It is 10x faster than the typical 1 gigabit networking you can copy data to it with (MBA users aren't plugging in 10+ gigabit network interfaces) and faster than almost all external media you plug into it. Its also fast enough for the processing you're going to use it for.

But some people who have no idea what they're talking about look at benchmark number and "big number more betterer". or something


edit:
that said, i'd strongly suggest: don't buy a 256 GB machine irrespective of speed. Its capacity you should be worried about. You're crippling your shiny new mac (of any type) with a meagre amount of local storage which will be quickly eaten by a few applications and time machine local backups in short order, never mind if you try and back up your phone with it or try store any actual work on it.

Yeah 512 GB or more is more money, but you'll get a far more usable machine for a relatively small percentage increase in total cost vs. the benefit.
 
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Gerdi

macrumors 6502
Apr 25, 2020
449
301
It is surprising to me, that people still do not understand the connection between thermal dissipation capability -> power -> performance.
And of course, you could have the point of view, that the MBA "throttles" or you could just acknowledge that the MBA can just "turbo" for a short amount of time to the performance level of the MBPro despite having a much lower thermal dissipation capability.
 
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darngooddesign

macrumors P6
Jul 4, 2007
18,362
10,114
Atlanta, GA
I wonder how many of the people concerned about the base config internal ssd speed also advocate only buying base because "you can get an external drive cheaper"?
That's why all these import/export benchmarks are unrealistic. No one is exporting a huge amount of data to a tiny internal drive, which is already pretty full with applications and user files, not to mention their keeping empty space reserved for scratch/swap memory. They are using an external drive for their project files, and no one is benchmarking system performance while using an external drive.
 
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Zdigital2015

macrumors 601
Jul 14, 2015
4,143
5,622
East Coast, United States
Id go further.

I'd say the people complaining are spec sheet racing and have no idea what they're talking about with regards to
  1. real world performance impact
  2. context of this product in the market place
As i said above, for this product it is a non-issue. It is 10x faster than the typical 1 gigabit networking you can copy data to it with (MBA users aren't plugging in 10+ gigabit network interfaces) and faster than almost all external media you plug into it. Its also fast enough for the processing you're going to use it for.

But some people who have no idea what they're talking about look at benchmark number and "big number more betterer". or something


edit:
that said, i'd strongly suggest: don't buy a 256 GB machine irrespective of speed. Its capacity you should be worried about. You're crippling your shiny new mac (of any type) with a meagre amount of local storage which will be quickly eaten by a few applications and time machine local backups in short order, never mind if you try and back up your phone with it or try store any actual work on it.

Yeah 512 GB or more is more money, but you'll get a far more usable machine for a relatively small percentage increase in total cost vs. the benefit.
I finally outgrew 256GB being usable about three years ago and the extra $200 spent has been worth it to me. If I decided to get another knock about Mac, I’d probably get the M1 Air 8/256 and not worry about the speed as it’s not going to be a heavy lifting machine on any way. Others need to stop trying convoluted ways of “outsmarting” Apple and determine what they really need and then buy accordingly. It’s not hard to do and then you’re not constantly feeling like you compromised, but I digress.
 
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the future

macrumors 68040
Jul 17, 2002
3,644
5,935
Yeah, but an unthrottled M1 is still faster than a throttled M2, isn't it?

Not really, no.

569328.jpg
 

Xiao_Xi

macrumors 68000
Oct 27, 2021
1,627
1,101
I wonder whether some of the backlash to the thermal throttling is related to the fact that some people would prefer a renewed 13" MBP over an MBA to push their laptop a bit more.
 
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DavidChoux

Suspended
Jun 7, 2022
239
254
A couple of things.

With regards to the slower SSD speed for the base model, I don't think it's a matter of people thinking it's literally too slow for their workloads. I think it's more that it's just a bit disappointing that a new more expensive laptop has an SSD speed of half that of the previous year's model. And that's perfectly understandable. Normally you'd expect things to improve year on year, and for something to worsen by 50%, that's quite significant.

Secondly, where are these people that are surprised the M2 throttles? Is there anyone truly surprised by this?
 
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vadimyuryev

macrumors member
Oct 3, 2017
65
209
People need understand that it's part of the design of the fanless MBA. It's designed to throttle.


This is confirmed by an ex-Nuvia employee and a chip analyst.



You're misunderstanding the issue. Yes, we know that this is how a modern chip is designed to work. If it gets too hot, it throttles by slowing down the clock speed. We know this. We've known this for many years.

The point is that Apple combined the new M2 chip that can use a LOT more power than the M1 chip with a very thin chassis that DOES NOT have an actual proper heatsink, according to iFixit's teardown.

The previous M1 MacBook Air actually had a decent heatsink, which allowed the temps to stay lower.

This time around, Apple not only got rid of the proper heatsink and replaced it with a thin metal shield, but they also put in a chip that uses more power.

This leads to throttling that happens sooner than it did before.

So yes, the throttling is working as intended, but it could've been avoided if put the M2 chip over to the left side and connected a proper heatsink that fills in that large open area on the left side that isn't filled up with the logic board. (see image)

That's what people aren't happy about. We're not mad at throttling. It works as intended like it always has. We're not happy with Apple's passive cooling design which is vastly worse than the previous M1 MacBook Air's passive cooling design.

Screen Shot 2022-07-20 at 11.08.43 AM.png
 

NT1440

macrumors Pentium
May 18, 2008
15,092
22,158
You're misunderstanding the issue. Yes, we know that this is how a modern chip is designed to work. If it gets too hot, it throttles by slowing down the clock speed. We know this. We've known this for many years.

The point is that Apple combined the new M2 chip that can use a LOT more power than the M1 chip with a very thin chassis that DOES NOT have an actual proper heatsink, according to iFixit's teardown.

The previous M1 MacBook Air actually had a decent heatsink, which allowed the temps to stay lower.

This time around, Apple not only got rid of the proper heatsink and replaced it with a thin metal shield, but they also put in a chip that uses more power.

This leads to throttling that happens sooner than it did before.

So yes, the throttling is working as intended, but it could've been avoided if put the M2 chip over to the left side and connected a proper heatsink that fills in that large open area on the left side that isn't filled up with the logic board. (see image)

That's what people aren't happy about. We're not mad at throttling. It works as intended like it always has. We're not happy with Apple's passive cooling design which is vastly worse than the previous M1 MacBook Air's passive cooling design.

View attachment 2032243
With the base config SSD speeds set aside, does the M2 finish tasks faster than the M1 or not? I haven’t been able to find a direct answer to that.
 

1096bimu

macrumors 6502
Nov 7, 2017
459
571
With the base config SSD speeds set aside, does the M2 finish tasks faster than the M1 or not? I haven’t been able to find a direct answer to that.
if you have 512 SSD, for long sustained tasks, still yes but not by much, on the new Air.
If you use the Pro or with better cooling, the difference is much closer to Apple Claims.
 

doboy

macrumors 68040
Jul 6, 2007
3,775
2,946
So it’s an improvement, even with throttling (which is what it’s supposed to do). What’s the problem (again if we rule out the base spec SSD molehill)?
People just want more bang for the buck, especially after a price bump.
 
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