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iChan

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 12, 2003
859
155
Dublin, Ireland.
Just a little fun test I did on the base MBA...

Just opening every single default app in the dock of a fresh user and then opening the activity monitor at the end to check out RAM usage.

I dunno how useful is it to see this, but the speed and fluidity of everything is simply obscene for a MBA.

 
To be perfectly honest, I haven't used a Mac with less than 16GB of RAM for well over a decade, but for the way I'll be using this MBA, 16GB would actually feel like overkill. I'm delighted I took the plunge on the base model. Absolutely no regrets.
 
I think we're seeing the benefits of finally shedding the limitations of the x86_64 microarchitecture.

I have this crazy feeling that Apple Silicon will show the rest of the industry that x86_64 sucks and that we may finally move on to something better.

Probably more the limitations of Intel's 14nm+++++++
 
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Just a little fun test I did on the base MBA...

Just opening every single default app in the dock of a fresh user and then opening the activity monitor at the end to check out RAM usage.

I dunno how useful is it to see this, but the speed and fluidity of everything is simply obscene for a MBA.

View attachment 1670884
Thanks a lot, this is more useful than any YouTuber review so far
 
I’ve wondered before if Apple’s cooling solution for the early 2020 Air was intentionally poor and noisy to provide a starker contrast for the M1 release.
 
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Reactions: DeanL
I
To be perfectly honest, I haven't used a Mac with less than 16GB of RAM for well over a decade, but for the way I'll be using this MBA, 16GB would actually feel like overkill. I'm delighted I took the plunge on the base model. Absolutely no regrets.
I've gone with the base on the Mini and an MBA. No regrets, the chip is clearly insanely good.
 
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I’ve wondered before if Apple’s cooling solution for the early 2020 Air was intentionally poor and noisy to provide a starker contrast for the M1 release.
I dunno, but my early 2020 Air has always been silent except when I was specifically doing something I knew would create a substantial load - such as generating hundreds of RAW previews or exporting dozens of RAW images.

In everyday Safari/Mail/Lightroom/etc tasks it's remained cool and quiet.
 
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Just a little fun test I did on the base MBA...

Just opening every single default app in the dock of a fresh user and then opening the activity monitor at the end to check out RAM usage.

I dunno how useful is it to see this, but the speed and fluidity of everything is simply obscene for a MBA.

View attachment 1670884
You made the frontpage of MacRUMOR
 
That is very impressive. Things just pop open instantly.

tenor.gif
 
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Reactions: George Dawes
Nice. I suspect this has more to do with the faster SSD than the CPU though.
No way. Intel Macs with even faster SSDs do not do this.

I dunno, but my early 2020 Air has always been silent except when I was specifically doing something I knew would create a substantial load - such as generating hundreds of RAW previews or exporting dozens of RAW images.

In everyday Safari/Mail/Lightroom/etc tasks it's remained cool and quiet.
is this the base model? I’ve heard the 4 core ones are hotter.
 
Awesome stuff! Do you have openemu installed? I’m wondering does it run well under rosseta?
 
is this the base model? I’ve heard the 4 core ones are hotter.

No, i5 model. I also don’t run chrome, I don’t have a bunch of unnecessary daemons/helpers, and I don’t watch videos that are forced to software decode. :)

I think part of the perception problem comes from people looking at the CPU temperature and forgetting the surface temperatures of the case are what’s important. I think the 10th gen Intel CPUs simply tended to run hotter than earlier models, which affected peoples perception of what was supposedly “too hot”. In my case I figure the Intel engineers know more about this stuff than I do, so it’s never bothered me that the CPU might run at its design spec top temperature went under load.
 
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