Should I return M1 MBA for MBP?

[NozzleDazzle]

Hi guys,

I see a lot of recommendations here to get MBP over MBA for “performance” needs, but I went with the 8GB/8core MBA based on the pretty stellar performance reviews and (admittedly) wanting the gold color. My use case is photoshop/Lightroom usage, office documentation, many tabs of research, and a combination of League of Legends and OSRS (have a separate keyboard for F-keys if I get a MBP). Typically I get into 2-3 hours sessions if I start gaming, although it’s not a daily activity.

I checked the performance playing a few games of LoL on the MBA yesterday, it got a bit warm and the memory pressure held in the yellow basically the whole time. It was totally satisfactory otherwise, but not sure if I’d be better served getting the MBP and if the load above will harm the laptop in the long run? Also expecting to have 3-4 years with this thing before upgrading again. Anybody with similar use case have advice?

Appreciate any help!

 

[chabig]

The load won't harm the machine. But I'd say it's very unusual on any Mac for memory pressure to be yellow. You will probably be better with 16GB of RAM. And since you said the machine got warm, you might be better served by the MacBook Pro due to its active cooling.

 

[ght56]

As everything else runs well but you do have indicators of needing more RAM and you likely can benefit from active cooling with gaming both now and in the future and potentially also with editing, I definitely would get a MBP M1 with 16 GB of RAM in your case.

 

[James_C]

You don't need to worry about your M1 Air getting warm. The M1 Chips still run significantly cooler than the Intel processors that they replaced even with fan cooling. Those Intel Machines can run for 7 years+. The only advantage is for games like league of legends you may get slightly better performance (15%) on extended play sessions as the Air will reduce the clock speed to keep the Air cool. Aside from gaming your other uses are not likely to throttle the Air so performance will be the same as the M1 Pro. So you would be paying a lot more for only a small performance improvement while gaming, not worth switching IMO.

 

[NozzleDazzle]

Agh, there’s not great consensus here... But pretty much mirrors the conversations I’ve perused elsewhere on the forums here and other sites. I guess if I’m keeping this for a few years, does it make more sense to get the MBP since it has that extra cooling potential during those longer gameplays? And if the RAM is sufficient now, would it be overkill to get the 16GB just in case the requirements for the games become more taxing later?

 

[James_C]

And if the RAM is sufficient now, would it be overkill to get the 16GB just in case the requirements for the games become more taxing later?

If you do plan keeping it for 4/5 years it may be worth upgrading the RAM, but I would stick with a MBA. To be honest the only reason to go for the MBP is the Touch Bar. Yes the MBP does have some other advantages but I think they are minor, for example most people don't need more battery life if the Air lasts all day anyway.