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2020 MacBook Air With Quad-Core i5 is Up to 76% Faster Than 2018-2019 Model Based on Benchmarks
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mine is still chugging along too.. I just wonder if I should save the $150 as i'm not sure I ever used the extra speed clock in the i7 vs the i5. this will be my 1st i5 processor in any pc ever. so i am still torn.
BUT MY FOOOOOMOOOOOO 😆
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Since you were responding to the post ending with telling people to stay safe I got real worried with how you started this post!
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I bought a maxed out 512/16 2018 MBA brand new from Best Buy last summer for a big discount of $1299. I'm gonna trade it in to Apple and take the loss, and use the $640 (hurts so bad) toward the purchase of this new version, which I also plan on maxing out. The new keyboard gives me so much peace of mind.
How I see it the i3 is for the kids or wife who spends hours on Reddit or FB. The i5 is for a young family laptop using all kinds of stuff from FB to Quicken, and streaming. Both are for those who upgrade every 2-3 years. The i7 is for all of the above and then some more intense use but not extreme use and for future proofing. Something you will buy and keep 4-5 or more years. As for Ram 16 gig on any of them. And no less than 512 SSD. Just my opinion.
Typing this on a 2011 base 13" MacBook Air with the standard i5 and 4 GB of RAM. It's my primary computer in terms of usage, but not where I sync my devices, store documents, etc. I keep it in my living room and use it while I'm watching TV, or often, instead of the TV. It bogs down if I'm casting a tab of something Chromecast doesn't support from Google Chrome. Other than that, my current base model Air is adequate for what I use it for--mostly web browsing and document editing, with occasional video watching. I only plan to upgrade because High Sierra is unlikely to be supported later this year. I don't care about the Retina Display, but USB-C charging is an attractive feature to me.
If you're buying one of these as your primary computer to store photos, have a dozen apps open, etc., by all means, get the upgrades, but I have no complaints about my nine year old base model.
If you're buying one of these as your primary computer to store photos, have a dozen apps open, etc., by all means, get the upgrades, but I have no complaints about my nine year old base model.
Low voltage cpu's are still going to be slow.
Let's put this macbook in comparison with the venerable, and 5-year old 2015 macbook pro 15" using the H-series higher wattage cpu:
2020 air:
- 1047 single threaded / 2568 multi-threaded
2015 15" pro:
- 864 single threaded / 3200 multi-threaded
So a 5 year old MBP 15" will run 20% slower on single threaded but about 20% faster on multithreaded.
Congratulations, your $1500+ MB Air is now about as fast as a 5 year old 15".
I realize a more fair comparison is a 13" pro for the form factor, but felt that it was worth comparing laptops in general if you don't travel around a lot with them.
Let's put this macbook in comparison with the venerable, and 5-year old 2015 macbook pro 15" using the H-series higher wattage cpu:
2020 air:
- 1047 single threaded / 2568 multi-threaded
2015 15" pro:
- 864 single threaded / 3200 multi-threaded
So a 5 year old MBP 15" will run 20% slower on single threaded but about 20% faster on multithreaded.
Congratulations, your $1500+ MB Air is now about as fast as a 5 year old 15".
I realize a more fair comparison is a 13" pro for the form factor, but felt that it was worth comparing laptops in general if you don't travel around a lot with them.
Compared this to my MacBook Pro (13-inch Retina Late 2013) which has Single core: 764 and Multicore: 1640. Not that much of a difference in 7 years !
So your insight is that the lowest-power laptop of today is only 20% faster than the highest-power laptop from five years ago?
I don’t understand the point. Of course the Air uses low-power chips. It always has. It’s basically in the name. Compare the Air to a 2015 Air, and you’ll see more impressive gains.
This sure makes the new MBA a lot more appealing, but it still misses stuff I loved about my 2013 MBA: magsafe, SD card slot, and regular USB connectors for the plethora of flash drives out there.
I get USB-C is the future, but it’s still not the present. Nevertheless, I would consider this as a potential replacement for my 2015 MBP.
I get USB-C is the future, but it’s still not the present. Nevertheless, I would consider this as a potential replacement for my 2015 MBP.
I don't know what kind of photos you take, but I have 11 000 photos, plenty of apps and videos on my 64 GB iPhone... With space to grow! ...And I question why I need 11 000 photos on my phone that I never look at.
I think 256 GB in a laptop is probably the sweetspot for most people. I have yet to hit the roof with my 256 GB Air, and it's mostly GoPro videos taking up space anyways.
We're all different though.
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
dev 7.8G 0 7.8G 0% /dev
run 7.8G 1.9M 7.8G 1% /run
/dev/sda4 30G 23G 5.2G 82% /
tmpfs 7.8G 200M 7.6G 3% /dev/shm
tmpfs 7.8G 0 7.8G 0% /sys/fs/cgroup
tmpfs 7.8G 488M 7.3G 7% /tmp
/dev/sda5 182G 101G 73G 59% /_fast
/dev/sda2 488M 210M 243M 47% /boot
/dev/sdb1 1.8T 802G 939G 47% /_slow
/dev/sda1 511M 252K 511M 1% /efi
tmpfs 1.6G 44K 1.6G 1% /run/user/1000
my current linux, 256GB is too little for me
Apple needs to fix the entry-level 13” MBP with terrible 128gb/8GB RAM. The new 14” MBP base model needs to offer double the storage and RAM with 120Hz starting at $1299
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Maybe because it only hits 3.8GHz boost on a single core, with all four cores it's going to be much closer to the base clock which is 1.1/1.2 GHz
Upgrading the Air to a quad core i5 and 16gb of RAM is better than a base Pro at the same price.
The new MBA will run very hot that the temperature can reach 100C and Apple need to fix it with good ventilation!
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yes but it throttles REALLY bad. Macbook pro even 2019 is much better, sadly. This throttles really, really bad, 1.4GHz at 99C which is ****ing ridiculous. And fans run only like 40% but even with 100% they don't cool ****. I was almost ready to buy it but this is HORRIBLE.
thanks for that info. The lack of WiFi 6 means I will probably sit this one out.
i think quad mba have serious temperature control problem.
if you look at a laptop with nearly identical i5-1035g7 (say surface laptop3)
you will get 12xx single core and 44xx multi core, which significantly more than 2020 mba.
if you look at a laptop with nearly identical i5-1035g7 (say surface laptop3)
you will get 12xx single core and 44xx multi core, which significantly more than 2020 mba.
Why wouldn't it turn on? Maybe because the Intel Y series CPU is really bad that the temperature can get over 90C?
The 1035 is a 15W 'U' CPU, whereas Apple is using Y CPUs in the MacBook Air. It is not "nearly identical". It's not fully clear yet what exact part Apple is using, but it looks like their TDP is around 10W (there are announced 9W parts, but Apple gives higher clockrates, so they may have cTDP'd those up to 12W; someone said they are instead using more recently-announced 10W parts). So the Surface would have 50% more thermal headroom.
And it's not like the Surface Laptop 3 isn't known for heating problems…
If anything, it's Microsoft that put too hot a CPU in there, not Apple.
MacBook Air uses Intel CPU with 7-12w is extremely bad due to rapid spike in temperature up to 90C-100C and still requires a fan to prevent from overheating.