Nothing wrong? It is terrible that Intel CPU 7-12w draws very little power but produces a tremendous amount of heat up to 100C.
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2020 MacBook Air Reviews Praise Magic Keyboard and Faster Performance at Lower $999 Starting Price
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Nothing wrong? It is terrible that Intel CPU 7-12w draws very little power but produces a tremendous amount of heat up to 100C.
Intel mobile CPUs have been rated to run at up to 100C since at least the move to Intel Macs.
This exactly. It looks like we are heading into another period of well-priced laptops with decent specs like we had 2011-2015.
Finally. Apple's made the default Mac for MOST users, and the 256 GB starting config for $999 is a great value proposition.
People forget---even in the Air's heyday, it was the 11 inch Air that cost $899 to $999 and the 13 inch only followed suit at the end of that generation's life.
No better time to buy a MacBook Air than now---even with the thermal throttling most users will not care about.
People forget---even in the Air's heyday, it was the 11 inch Air that cost $899 to $999 and the 13 inch only followed suit at the end of that generation's life.
No better time to buy a MacBook Air than now---even with the thermal throttling most users will not care about.
Yeah, ATP brought this up the other day.
In 2015, they dropped the 11-inch Air and introduced the 12-inch MacBook, presumably optimistic at the time that it would, in the long run, be the Air's successor: that Intel would be able to eventually get performance of Core M (now Y-series) up to be good enough™, and that Apple would be able to reduce the price by several hundreds of dollars over time without killing the margin. That first thing basically never happened — we have a Y-series chip today that's much faster, but at more than twice the TDP. They dropped the 13-inch in price, but left it on Broadwell (from 2015) until mid-2018. And then to top it off, the 2018 model still didn't have a great CPU, and had the flawed keyboard.
So Apple bet big on a future that didn't come, and in the meantime created a big hole in their line-up, that they didn't fix until this week. Half a decade!
Glad that's over.
Honestly, we don't know that much yet about the thermals.
And yeah, if you buy it for development purposes or whatever, I'd recommend waiting a few weeks for more reviews to come in, for exactly that reason.
The 720p is simply potato quality. I think they want you to use your $1000 phone for Facetime.
720p is a red herring.
What people want is a better sensor, and just how much Apple can do to fit a better sensor into 2mm is unclear. They might be able to hack it by putting multiple sensors next to each other and fusing the image.
Wow, the world's most efficient heater! I should buy a kettle with one.
How fast is i3 and i5 version of this macbook air over the previous years model ?
mba is a usually for lighterweight tasks, I guess there will not be a dramatic difference in performance unless you are doing 4k video edit or usuing professioanl software ?
mba is a usually for lighterweight tasks, I guess there will not be a dramatic difference in performance unless you are doing 4k video edit or usuing professioanl software ?
Plenty fast.
We don't have benchmarks of the i3 yet, but we do for the i5. Averaging Jason Snell's and MKBHD's results, the i5 is 48% faster in single-core, and 92% faster in multi-core. (That latter result, of course, is largely due to having twice the cores.)
Apple cites 9% lower Turbo Boost for the i3, and of course it only has half the cores (the same amount as on previous year's model), so the i3 might only be about 33% faster in single-core (probably more, though), depending how much the benchmarks take advantage of Turbo Boost. That's still a very rare year-over-year gain, though.
I know how boost technology works (basically overclocking until reaching a thermal threshhold), but in this case they could, with little to no efforts put a heatpipe that goes to the rear and then takes a 90° left turn to the fan, possible also to the right and put a second heat exchange at the inlet. That should deal with even 15W of thermal loss:
(red: exisiting space for heat exchanger, orange lines: path of heatpipes)
The design decision simply doesn't make much sense... We must not forget: This isn't a 1kg (2lb) device but 1,3kg. The MBP has 1,37kg. Can't really argue with weight savings here.
I don’t think it’s quite a fair comparison to call 720p potato cam. That’s like calling a 5-second 0-60 time car slow now that sub-4.5 second 0-60 time cars straight out of the showroom aren’t all that rare. Once again, for what a MacBook webcam is used for, and since every design has its trade offs (unless one is willing to spend $3500 for the everything-is-optimized-that-can-be-optimized MacBook Air), how much value is there in 1080p in a sub-16 inch screen when conventional wisdom and experience shows minimal gains in 1080p vs. 720p for 50-inch or less televisions?
It's not really about resolution; even 480p would be OK for video conferencing.
But the sensor just isn't great, and as a result, the lighting and all are also quite poor. Now, whether Apple can easily put a better sensor in such little room is another question.
Agreed, it would be easy enough to execute, however Apple has it's own thinking. As stated Apple is more than happy to leave performance on the table for quiet operation. If you look at modern portable Mac's they only have the bare minimum for cooling and those stepping outside Apple's bubble of average use can incur issues 16" with multiple displays, which is ridiculous give the cost and how it's marketed.
Another factor is if the Air is too powerful it would eat into MBP sales, Apple doesn't want that to happen either as it's obsessed with control and wanting users to purchase ever more hardware. I like the design of the new Air and will watch to see how it pans out, although I will likely keep my W10 UMPC 2in1 as the Air would be a stepdown in many areas, not that the UMPC is really a comparable device.
Q-6
The only extended test I saw was a Cinebench R20. It initially hit about 2.4GHz then rapidly settled in at about 1.47GHz with little if any fan noise, at 99/100°C.
That’s similar to the 16” 2.4/5.0, which averages 3.15GHz, though at <80°C, with CPU power consumption at about 60W.
In both cases the thermals allow about a 30% overclock. That may be a coincidence, or a design goal 🤷♂️
In any case, more than acceptable performance in machines that make the engineering trade off typical of Apple: longer battery life and lower fan noise rather than maximum performance. (More so with the Air than with the 16” MBP.)
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This, imho, is the real reason. An Air that could sustain boost clook of a quad core would certainly be a threat for entry level MBP's...
Yes, nothing wrong. 100°C is not “a tremendous amount of heat”. No bolding necessary 😂
12W is Intel’s spec for cTDP up, and the part is rated for continuous operation at 100°C.
These parts seem to be 10W, FWIW. I still haven't seen independent confirmation, but they seen to be the new 1030NG7, etc., rather than cTDP'd 1030G7, etc.
Right now, the i5 in the Air hits about 1.5GHz at 13W. Higher clocks wouldn’t necessarily be possible, even if the cooling system were designed to remove more heat, without increasing power consumption. Compared to the MBP, the Air prioritizes longer battery life and quietness.
No doubt Apple could produce higher performing laptops, though battery life would be worse and it may sound like a jet engine, like a Razer.
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Yeah, I think this is OK.
I think it's fair to wait a few weeks for more reports to come in. But people running Cinebench or a compiler and then complaining about thermals are missing the point (perhaps deliberately so). The Air was never marketed as a workhorse, and this one isn't either. If you want that, get the 16-inch or wait for new 13-inch (14-inch?) Pros.
Yes you’re right, it is being reported as an i5-1030NG7. I remember seeing those “N” parts on some roadmap leaks, but I can’t remember how they differ from the non-N. It might just be binning, with the N parts not rated for 800MHz at 7W. I’m sure we’ll learn more soon 🙂
PS Intel power gadget was showing a 13W CPU consumption during the Cinebench R20 I mentioned previously, fwiw.
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I deny it.
So I guess it’s not undeniably bad.
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Why is that terrible, exactly? That‘s what the chip is designed for, and it’s not terribly high for a semiconductor device.
Great idea!
And iPad Air 12" to 13" with 4GB of RAM too!
And iPhone Air too!😳
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Isn't already ridiculous calling the MacBook 13.3" with 2.8 pounds (1.29 kg) an "Air"?Won't happen. Calling something that big an "Air" would be ridiculous
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Maybe the 10th gen i3 with 3733MHz LPDDR4X RAM is a 'big upgrade' from the 8th gen i5 with 2133MHz LPDDR3 RAM?