What's the point of the MBP when the MBA uses the same chips

[maflynn]

I'm not understanding the ARM line-up as it stands. Apple is using the exact same chips for all three arm computers

In the past there was differences to justify the purchase, but now you'll be getting the exact same CPU, GPU, memory, and I'd postulate nearly the same performance. Why buy a MBP when I can have a MBA for 300 less? What am I missing? The fact the MBA is fanless and will throttle so it heat will require it to run slower?

 

[DHagan4755]

Supposedly the MacBook Pro has better performance because it has a fan to allow it to run faster under sustained loads. We need to see that when people start getting them.

 

[Spindel]

Bigger battery, active cooling (meaning less or no throttling during sustained load), better display (depending on your definition of better display).

 

[clarencek]

Don’t forget the touchbar. Just another reason to go for the air. Lol.

 

[MrGunnyPT]

Supposedly the MacBook Pro has better performance because it has a fan to allow it to run faster under sustained loads. We need to see that when people start getting them.

Yeah pretty much

 

[deeddawg]

I'm not understanding the ARM line-up as it stands. Apple is using the exact same chips for all three arm computers

In the past there was differences to justify the purchase, but now you'll be getting the exact same CPU, GPU, memory, and I'd postulate nearly the same performance. Why buy a MBP when I can have a MBA for 300 less? What am I missing? The fact the MBA is fanless and will throttle so it heat will require it to run slower?

#1 - we don't know the chips aren't binned in some manner with perhaps higher TDP chips going to the MBP

#2 - All modern CPUs throttle. Otherwise they waste potential burst performance when starting at a lower temp. An actively cooled system (MBP) will typically throttle less than a passively cooled system (MBA), resulting in better sustained heavy CPU load performance. What that look like from a quantitative standpoint remains to be seen.

#3 - Unsure where you're seeing $300 difference, I'm seeing $250 difference when comparing name RAM/SSD configs. There's also the MBP having a 25% brighter screen, Touchbar, upgraded mic/speakers, more battery life. Whatever value those have will be an individual thing.

 

[leman]

I actually see it in the opposite light. The standard mode of operation in CPU business is to sell the same chip in different configurations, at different price points. Basically, when you buy an Intel CPU you are most likely being "cheated", as it's performance is likely to be artificially limited.

With M1 Apple is going a different route — you get the same chip (with some caveats like the disabled GPU core in the lower-end to save costs) across different hardware, and the limiting factor is not the chip configuration itself but the thermal capability of the chassis. For general usability (shortly bursts), all these machines are likely to achieve similar performance. In long-lasting sustained workloads actively cooled devices will have better performance.

To sum it up, users are getting more for their money. You choose your chassis and you get the performance fitting of that chassis. The chips themselves are not additionally restricted.

 

[maflynn]

Supposedly the MacBook Pro has better performance because it has a fan to allow it to run faster under sustained loads. We need to see that when people start getting them.

I know we have to wait for actual benchmarks and we don't know if Apple is imposing default throttling in the MBA to purposely make it slower, or the heat will naturally cause it to slow down but all things being equal they are the same computer, one just has a fan

Edit:
Let me add that if apple gave us a better web cam, or more storage/memory in the MBP then that could help differentiate between the two models but as it stands, why spend 300 when you're basically getting the same computer

 

[leman]

I know we have to wait for actual benchmarks and we don't know if Apple is imposing default throttling in the MBA to purposely make it slower, or the heat will naturally cause it to slow down but all things being equal they are the same computer, one just has a fan

Geekbench results make it very clear that Apple does no such thing

 

[maflynn]

Geekbench results make it very clear that Apple does no such thing

So there's less justification (at least to me), for the MBP, since its the same computer

 

[leman]

So there's less justification (at least to me), for the MBP, since its the same computer

If you don't do any heavy-duty processing work and battery life is less important to you, Air will be an excellent computer. I care about sustained performance, so I ordered a Pro.

 

[theluggage]

I'm not understanding the ARM line-up as it stands. Apple is using the exact same chips for all three arm computers

Educated guess: its the same chip, but it can configured for different "power profiles" that determine clock speeds, use of low vs. high power cores etc. E.g. passive cooling, actively-cooled laptop, desktop. Maybe some "binning" is involved. I suspect quite a lot of that went on with the Intel range, too.

I think its a case of waiting for the real-world, sustained performance benchmarks. The announcement was an information vacuum as to actual performance. A special prize goes to "vs. the latest PC Laptop Chip (tm)". For shame.

...I suspect that the performance of these machines on "pro" tasks has been over-sold a bit - too. If you take the presentation at face value, you can pretty much chuck your Mac Pro in the landfill today and replace it with an M1 Air. Yeah, right.

As for the Mini - I guess it means that a lot of developers loved the DTK, which is now pretty much useless (and has to be handed back in 6 months anyway). Even with its limitations it's the perfect "affordable" (by Apple standards) choice if you want to play with/evaluate Apple Silicon while you wait for the M2/M1 Pro/Whatever and for all the software you need to be released.

 

[leman]

...I suspect that the performance of these machines on "pro" tasks has been over-sold a bit - too. If you take the presentation at face value, you can pretty much chuck your Mac Pro in the landfill today and replace it with an M1 Air. Yeah, right.

Kind of depends on what you do. For software development on small to medium-sized codebases, I'd expect the M1 Air to be faster than the entry Mac Pro for example. There is also someone who run Affinity Photo benchmarks on M1 showing that it outperforms a 2019 iMac... and significantly outperforms many Windows workstations in CPU work. Wide execution units, unified memory and the ability to maintain peak clocks even in the sustained scenario will go a long way for pro workloads.

 

[deeddawg]

So there's less justification (at least to me), for the MBP, since its the same computer

Yes, if your workload is bursty rather than sustained CPU loading, and you don't need touchbar, brighter display, etc. then there's not much reason to choose the two-port M1 MBP over M1 MBA.

Note that Apple's not yet transitioned the four-port MBP models yet. They've essentially just done the lower-tier systems at this point. What the more "performance" oriented AS stuff looks like is something we'll find out in the future.

 

[theSeb]

Apple, as they are known to do and in their wisdom, likes to keep it simple, hence the one name, even though it often becomes more complex for knowledgeable consumers.

In reality it's not that different to what other chip makers though, except that those manufacturers would have given the different versions of the M1 different names.

Here is the obvious difference and the fan in the MBP gives us the clue. Higher TDP will equate to the M1 running faster in the MBP than in the MBA.

 

[deeddawg]

Kind of depends on what you do. For software development on small to medium-sized codebases, I'd expect the M1 Air to be faster than the entry Mac Pro for example. There is also someone who run Affinity Photo benchmarks on M1 showing that it outperforms a 2019 iMac... and significantly outperforms many Windows workstations in CPU work. Wide execution units, unified memory and the ability to maintain peak clocks even in the sustained scenario will go a long way for pro workloads.

If by "someone" you mean the Affinity Photo lead developer, then yes.

Do we have any real workload benchmarks yet?

We have various peeks into real-world performance, though it very much depends on what you're looking for. Geekbench is not real world, but it's worth noting that there's enough submissions now for the Mac listings to have an averaged listing for the MBP. It looks good. It's Geekbench, so apply...

forums.macrumors.com

 

[UltimateSyn]

The M1 arrives at first in three different products: the MacBook Air, MacBook Pro and Mac Mini. The latter occupies its own place in the line-up, but given that the Air and Pro now have the exact same chip, how can they stay distinct?

“Thermal capacity,” says Federighi decisively. The Pro has a fan – Apple calls it an “active cooling system” – while the Air doesn’t, and the rest of the performance flows from there.

Federighi starts sketching out a graph that will be familiar to anyone who watched the event. The thing that is really holding these chips back is heat: as you give them more cooling to play with, they become even faster. The MacBook has some other things, too – such as even more battery – but it’s that extra headroom that really allows them to roar.

- https://www.independent.co.uk/life-...ook-release-specs-ports-reviews-b1721844.html

I wonder both how quickly the MBA will throttle and how quickly the MBP's fans will spin up.

 

[deeddawg]

Apple, as they are known to do and in their wisdom, likes to keep it simple, hence the one name, even though it often becomes more complex for knowledgeable consumers.

In reality it's not that different to what other chip makers though, except that those manufacturers would have given the different versions of the M1 different names.

Here is the obvious difference and the fan in the MBP gives us the clue. Higher TDP will equate to the M1 running faster in the MBP than in the MBA.

View attachment 1663962

Interesting.... "USB-C power port" suggests the M1 MBP will provide power through USBC to external device but not the MBA?

Difficult these days to know what details on the Apple website is an error and what is accurate, but this may be something to check out if that's important to a person.

 

[UltimateSyn]

Interesting.... "USB-C power port" suggests the M1 MBP will provide power through USBC to external device but not the MBA?

Difficult these days to know what details on the Apple website is an error and what is accurate, but this may be something to check out if that's important to a person.

View attachment 1663981

It's still somewhat of a mystery, but I made a thread on it (https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...ble-of-faster-charging-than-the-other.2266824) and contacted Apple Support. They essentially told me that using the USB-C port on the MBP not designated for charging to charge it will result in 'higher CPU usage.' I don't know if that means lower charging speeds with that non-designated port too.

Please feel free to bump that thread, as I don't think a lot of people here have seen it since it got lost in the weeds of the initial post-event thread barrage.

 

[DHagan4755]

I wonder both how quickly the MBA will throttle and how quickly the MBP's fans will spin up.

Exactly what I was getting at. We'll soon find out how these all perform. My read of situation is that the Air will be good for bursty situations whereas the mini/MBP will be faster for thrashing type situations like when you're rendering/exporting/transcoding. How this is obvious to the average consumer? It's not.

 

[maflynn]

so I ordered a Pro.

For a so called pro machine, the specs are baffling

In this day and age, the web cam is woefully inadequate (we're more remote then ever and a decent web cam in 2020/2021 is a must), as is the ram. I mean, people were crowing how they need 64GB in the MBP forum, and here the professional series laptop starts off with 8, which is too small and only goes to 16GB. At least storage isn't hamstrung like memory is, so that's a plus but the price to upgrade the ram seems a bit stiff to me.

 

[rawCpoppa]

For a so called pro machine, the specs are baffling

In this day and age, the web cam is woefully inadequate (we're more remote then ever and a decent web cam in 2020/2021 is a must), as is the ram. I mean, people were crowing how they need 64GB in the MBP forum, and here the professional series laptop starts off with 8, which is too small and only goes to 16GB. At least storage isn't hamstrung like memory is, so that's a plus but the price to upgrade the ram seems a bit stiff to me.

You don’t know if the memory allocation is too small. It could be like how people compare android phones with double and triple the ram of iPhones yet iPhones still outperform them. I think this is a major shake up to how we think architectures should be. Wait for more benchmarks and reviews. The data is what one should be looking at rather than trying to explain away specs based on how we have grown accustomed to thinking over the last 20 years.

Another thing to remember is these machines compete against others in their class. At least previously. That’s why it’s so mind blowing that an entry level air is punching with the top of the line pro even if it’s for a burst. In the future other MBP that are in higher performance brackets will ship with more RAM. These are very early days.

Not sure a pro cares about webcam specs to be honest.

 

[UltimateSyn]

For a so called pro machine, the specs are baffling

In this day and age, the web cam is woefully inadequate (we're more remote then ever and a decent web cam in 2020/2021 is a must), as is the ram. I mean, people were crowing how they need 64GB in the MBP forum, and here the professional series laptop starts off with 8, which is too small and only goes to 16GB. At least storage isn't hamstrung like memory is, so that's a plus but the price to upgrade the ram seems a bit stiff to me.

Pro is a marketing term. Always has been, always will be. The MBA is a mass-consumer oriented laptop, and the entry-level MBP is a step above that. The same, but better. Prosumer. Similar to the iPhone 12 Pro vs iPhone 12.

16GB RAM was the max on both the 2020 Air and 2020 two-port Intel MBP and nobody cared six months ago. The four-port 13" MBP has yet to be updated to the M1X, or whatever it will be called, but rest assured it will retain its 32GB of maximum RAM. And it will be more expensive. Apple wants you to spent $2k+ if you want all that RAM. They are the Kings of Gradual Upsell.

On the webcam front: on one hand I totally agree with you. The webcam quality is dismal and desperately needs to be updated especially after the turns our world has taken in the past year. On the other hand the improved ISP from the M1 should make a significant difference in quality, and I can't seem to find any other thin and light Windows laptop that has an impressive 1080p webcam. Can you? I researched the XPS 13 and a few others and immediately found complaints about how ****** their webcams are, too. I'm not sure if it's a cost-saving measure or just a physical limitation of the thickness of the MacBook lids.

 

[leman]

For a so called pro machine, the specs are baffling

You must be joking. It's better than the laptop it replaces and it's better than the more expensive, more "pro" Intel-based 13" MBP

In this day and age, the web cam is woefully inadequate (we're more remote then ever and a decent web cam in 2020/2021 is a must)

Show me a laptop has has a better camera sensor in its display. You are complaining that the camera is inadequate but ignore the technical constraints that prevent a bigger camera to be fitter.

, as is the ram. I mean, people were crowing how they need 64GB in the MBP forum, and here the professional series laptop starts off with 8, which is too small and only goes to 16GB.

And they can still have their 64GB — on the larger 16". The two-port MBP 13" never supported 16GB. Your complains have no basis in reality. Need more RAM? Wait for the next wave of "bigger" Apple Silicon chips. M1 is entry-level consumer chip.

 

[leman]

Not sure a pro cares about webcam specs to be honest.

We do, we spend a lot of time in meetings this day. That said, the 720p camera + microphone array on my 16" MBP is vastly superior to anything my colleagues are using. Laptops with higher-res cameras are exceedingly rare: it's either convertibles that have the thickness to fit them or some weird models that put cameras in the laptop body so that they point at your nose.