8 or 10 core GPU for the new MBA?

[flyfly]

Hi!

What are you planning to choose between these 2 possibilities? Can we expect a big difference in speed for upgrading to 10 cores? My "hard" usage would be photoshop and some small video editing with ScreenFlow. Price wise is 120€ here in my country.

Thank you!

 

[jav6454]

On an Air, you won't notice the difference between 8 and 10 core. Also, upping to 10-core GPU increases the cost; stick to the 8-core.

 

[UBS28]

8 core.

Why would you take the 10 core when you will get less battery life and the machine will thermal throttle anyway most likely? You might have a higher “burst” speed, but it cannot sustain it anyway.

 

[flyfly]

I didn't know that the battery would last less on the 10 core, good thing to know!

Let's see how it goes when they make one to one comparisson between both, but thanks for your comments, definitely will go to the 8 core then. Final price in my spec is 2068€ (8 core GPU, 16GB RAM, 1TB + educational discount)

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

I didn't know that the battery would last less on the 10 core, good thing to know!

It has 25% more cores, so will use up to 25% more power.

 

[DHagan4755]

It has 25% more cores, so will use up to 25% more power.

To your point, if you’re looking at the fine print on the new MacBook Air product page, Apple’s battery life claims are based on the 8-core GPU model.

 

[lleial]

I'm going for the 10-core M2 MBA. IMO you will notice a difference. Despite thermal throttling, more cores on the same payload of work should result in less work per core. According to my own findings, specially in games (on the 7-GPU core M1 MBA), thermal throttling doesn't make much of a difference (depending on a case-to-case scenario), rather than just cooling-down the entire system overall (which obviously puts less stress on the rest of components).

If I set, lets say, a specific PlayStation 2 game to emulate (AetherSX2), at a resolution of 1080p (running at 60fps), and the GPU use is already at 70-90% I can no longer raise the resolution to 2K because the cores cannot deliver more performance (no head space). Thermal throttling is not an issue because even at lower clock speeds the system can still deliver 1080p60fps, so in this case I'm not profiting from it.

Now if instead of 7 cores I had 8, such as the M1 MacBook Pro, the GPU could deliver more performance, ceteris paribus, I could possibly raise the resolution to 1440p, while still achieving those 60fps.

Regarding the M2 MacBook Air, 10 cores means you're getting 3 extra cores compared to the base model M1 MBA, which translates into a 43% boost in cores. On top of this, each core has its new design which should deliver more performance overall resulting in a better performing system.

Since we still do not have our hands on any of the M2 Macs, we will have to wait and see the reviews and analysis.

I have my own YouTube channel where I test performance of games in general (Native ARM, Parallels, Crossover/WINE, Rosetta2, Emulators (PS2, PS3, GC, etc.)), with a bunch of metrics (FPS, CPU%, RAM%, SoC Tº, Ambient Tº, GPU Use, CPU Use per core), so that we can get a good idea of what's going on under the hood (Here's an example)

I'm expecting to receive the M2 MacBook Pro (8CPU/10GPU), next week to release a bunch of testing in this regard, and after that, the same with the new M2 MacBook Air. I will carry out direct comparisons with the M1 MBA, and then with all three together.

My focus is simply on gaming, so that's all I can talk about.

 

[Howard2k]

8 core.

Why would you take the 10 core when you will get less battery life and the machine will thermal throttle anyway most likely? You might have a higher “burst” speed, but it cannot sustain it anyway.

If your workflow is very bursty?

 

[Howard2k]

It has 25% more cores, so will use up to 25% more power.

25% GPU power. I know you know that, but it's not 25% overall system power as could be interpreted.


And with binning the higher core chips may be more efficient on a "per core" basis.

I might be wrong but I'm certain I saw an article on the performance of an older MBPro generation (Intel based) and the higher binned chip showed itself to be more efficient. I'm sure it's not strictly linear and there would be quite a bit of variation there too.

 

[jav6454]

I didn't know that the battery would last less on the 10 core, good thing to know!

Let's see how it goes when they make one to one comparisson between both, but thanks for your comments, definitely will go to the 8 core then. Final price in my spec is 2068€ (8 core GPU, 16GB RAM, 1TB + educational discount)

It will. However, if the 8-core variant is just binned down 10-core, then it'll consume the same.

 

[JPack]

Agree with 8-core suggestion.

Unless your application and specific app tools supports GPU hardware acceleration, it will be of little benefit.

 

[geta]

I didn't know that the battery would last less on the 10 core, good thing to know!

Let's see how it goes when they make one to one comparisson between both, but thanks for your comments, definitely will go to the 8 core then. Final price in my spec is 2068€ (8 core GPU, 16GB RAM, 1TB + educational discount)

Unless you’re on tight budget, for extra 120€ get the 10c GPU, special if you planing to keep it more then 2-3 years.

 

[oldcelt]

Ahhh! So I’ll only be light user, no heavy editing or gaming, but will need this purchase to last for quite a few years, so need to future proof. 8 or 10????????

 

[JPack]

Ahhh! So I’ll only be light user, no heavy editing or gaming, but will need this purchase to last for quite a few years, so need to future proof. 8 or 10????????

See my response above.

The CPU cores matter the most when future proofing. Most people run out of RAM or storage over time. Focus on those. Nobody with an Intel-based MacBook says they found the GPU slow and need to upgrade.

 

[mi7chy]

Too little to really make a difference. Flip a coin or put the difference towards >8GB DRAM.

 

[jav6454]

Ahhh! So I’ll only be light user, no heavy editing or gaming, but will need this purchase to last for quite a few years, so need to future proof. 8 or 10????????

The first two things people complain long term on a Mac are memory and storage; rarely if ever GPU.

 

[ucfgrad93]

Agree with 8-core suggestion.

Unless your application and specific app tools supports GPU hardware acceleration, it will be of little benefit.

Agreed, the extra GPU cores won’t be noticed by most users.

 

[DavidChoux]

Unless you’re on tight budget, for extra 120€ get the 10c GPU, special if you planing to keep it more then 2-3 years.

Really? You think without the 10c GPU in 2-3 years the Air would become problematic?

Do people here think upgrading every year is normal and that a machine over god forbid 5 years is just obsolete?

 

[jav6454]

Really? You think without the 10c GPU in 2-3 years the Air would become problematic?

Do people here think upgrading every year is normal and that a machine over god forbid 5 years is just obsolete?

That's what a laptop has become now.

 

[Love-hate 🍏 relationship]

I didn't know that the battery would last less on the 10 core, good thing to know!

Let's see how it goes when they make one to one comparisson between both, but thanks for your comments, definitely will go to the 8 core then. Final price in my spec is 2068€ (8 core GPU, 16GB RAM, 1TB + educational discount)

yeah that's just not true .a Binned chip won't necessarily consume less ,and in fact the MBP 14 8/14 consumes about as much as the 14' 10/16 .and heats as much .

 

[jav6454]

yeah that's just not true .a Binned chip won't necessarily consume less ,and in fact the MBP 14 8/14 consumes about as much as the 14' 10/16 .and heats as much .

Agreed. Normally binned chips from a fully enabled chip consume the exact same amount of power. Only chips with defective cores that have been deactivated usually consume less power.

 

[UBS28]

Agreed. Normally binned chips from a fully enabled chip consume the exact same amount of power. Only chips with defective cores that have been deactivated usually consume less power.

That is not true at all.

The M1 Max with 24-core has better battery life than the M1 Max with 32-cores. Hence why with the 14" MBP it is recommended to go with the 24-core option as the 14" MBP thermal throttles with the 32-core option. So it is basically the exact same situation with the M2 MBA.

You get more battery drain for little to no performance gain at all due to thermal throttling.

 

[jav6454]

That is not true at all.

The M1 Max with 24-core has better battery life than the M1 Max with 32-cores. Hence why with the 14" MBP it is recommended to go with the 24-core option.

When wafers of M-series chips are made, there are yield issues due to bad cores in the chips made. Apple and TSMC don't throw those chips out. They are sold to you are cheaper M-series chips. However, the defective areas are gated out and you get a M-series chip which will not consume as much power as a fully enabled M-series chip. That however is the usual case.

When yields improve, wafers churn out fully enabled chips en masse. So what do TSMC and Apple do? They bin down fully fledged chips and gimp them. Those chips are just gated. Sometimes you'll get one which reduces power consumption, other times (and more usually) you won't.

Right now, TSMC is having yield issues and what is likely happening is Macs with actual defective chips.

 

[UBS28]

When wafers of M-series chips are made, there are yield issues due to bad cores in the chips made. Apple and TSMC don't throw those chips out. They are sold to you are cheaper M-series chips. However, the defective areas are gated out and you get a M-series chip which will not consume as much power as a fully enabled M-series chip. That however is the usual case.

When yields improve, wafers churn out fully enabled chips en masse. So what do TSMC and Apple do? They bin down fully fledged chips and gimp them. Those chips are just gated. Sometimes you'll get one which reduces power consumption, other times (and more usually) you won't.

Right now, TSMC is having yield issues and what is likely happening is Macs with actual defective chips.

The M1 Max has been tested many times with the 24-core vs 32-core on the 14" MBP and this was the conclusion. The binned (24-core) version has better battery life.

So I don't see why it is going to be any different with the binned version of the M2.

 

[DavidChoux]

That's what a laptop has become now.

Not really. The vast majority of people don't upgrade every year

Here, considering everyone is a tech enthusiast, then yes maybe.