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Apple Silicon Mac Reviews: M1 Chip Delivers Exceptional Performance, Thermals, and Battery Life

ght56 said:
It sounds like they did a hell of a great job with these. I do hope in the future we see the ability to virtualize as I would love to replace my 16 inch with one of the future AS 14 or 16 inch models in several years.
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You can virtualise with them, although it may be a few months before Parallels, VMWare, and Docker are all ready (yes I know technically Docker is containerisation, not virtualisation).
 
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Some of these YouTube reviewers must be noobs because they don’t understand their video editing apps are using proxies. Dave Lee actually seems to think Premiere was playing Red Raw proxyless.

Without an accelerator such as the Afterburner or Red Rocket there is no such thing as smooth proxyless Red Raw editing even on ridiculously powerful workstations with RTX cards.
 
locovaca said:
A larger power supply that is used at a lower percentage of it’s capacity is not as efficient as a smaller power supply being used at a higher load relative to it’s rating.

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Yes I know that but the comment the review made was in the context of the efficiency of the M1 (i.e. performance per watt), not efficiency of the power supply unit.
 
mike... said:
You can virtualise with them, although it may be a few months before Parallels, VMWare, and Docker are all ready (yes I know technically Docker is containerisation, not virtualisation).
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I should have been more specific - virtualize Windows, and not just the ARM version but x64 versions. Neither company has confirmed whether or not Windows can be virtualized with their updated software. Windows for ARM licensing does not currently allow this and virtualizing Windows x86 and x64 versions has not been confirmed by either company. There are a ton of ifs at this point. I am hopeful within a 2-3 year timeframe that we might be able to virtualize Windows as well as we can now on Intel Macs, but that is a cautiously optimistic stage given how little is confirmed definitively.
 
I kept reading people criticizing these M1 laptops for not supporting dual external monitors. Did the Intel equivalent models these things replacing support dual monitors?
 
Unfortunately, that similarity extends to the webcam, which is still 720p resolution and still terrible. Apple has tried to borrow some of its real-time image processing from the iPhone to try to spruce up the image — and I do find that it does a better job evenly lighting my face — but mostly what I notice is that it looks bad (only now it's a more processed version of bad).
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We really considered giving these machines 10 out of 10 review scores, but this camera is bad enough to keep that from happening, especially on a pro laptop that costs more than the Air.
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I would easily buy any computer if it had the option for no webcam, so this is hardly a loss for me
 
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techwhiz said:
I don't know why people are confused about the limitations of the new M1.
It has 16GB of RAM and no external memory support.
The memory is shared between system and video memory.
Additional displays means consumption of memory at the tradeoff of system memory.
You also have a bandwidth issue. There is only so much memory bandwidth.
With no external memory and limited peripheral connections the system has better TDP.
When they add 4 channels of LPDDR and 26-40 lanes of PCIe like Intel processors, they you have a real comparison on thermals and power consumption.

Right now the M1 is a really fast iPad processor with a bit more peripheral connectivity.
It is no way a true comparison to an Intel or AMP processor, since it does not have the external memory or multiple lanes of PCIe supported.
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Don't tell me it can handle one 5k plus the retina but not 2 fullhd because of memory.
 
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For the air with 8gb and a 7core...do you think it’s enough for daily use along with some video/photo editing and maybe some Logic Pro? How much of an issue is it only have 7 cores compared to the 8? I’m trying to get an idea just what kind of performance a base air is putting out compared to the base model i3
 
Hi there, any chance to get more as 60 hz when connected external monitor with 120 hz support? pro 16 had official 60 hz too but no problem to run 120 hz on external display
 
delsoul said:
For the air with 8gb and a 7core...do you think it’s enough for daily use along with some video/photo editing and maybe some Logic Pro? How much of an issue is it only have 7 cores compared to the 8? I’m trying to get an idea just what kind of performance a base air is putting out compared to the base model i3
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I think the base model will be absolutely fine. I do all of those things except with garage band and final cut along with usually 40 to 70 tabs in Safari with a bunch of other programs. I’m replacing my MacBook 2017 13 inch with a base model air because it’s still a gigantic improvement on m1. Like huge.
 
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MacRumorUser78 said:
you can daisy-chain Thunderbolt devices to your heart's content.
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Only the ones that support daisy-chaining. That excludes a lot of things like portable SSDs and various adaptor dongles that you'd be likely to use with a laptop. Plus, any daisy-chained devices have to share the (admittedly large) bandwidth of a single thunderbolt controller/port whereas the 4-port Mac Pros have dual controllers and higher total bandwidth.

Nothing makes the limitation of 2 TB3 ports and nothing else on these machines good news - but the same was true of the models they replace so it is not a downgrade and is probably tolerable on these entry-level machines.
 
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I want to get a MacBook for someone as a gift, but at only $300 more I am curious about more of the details between the MBP and MBA.
Does anyone have any benchmarks for battery life of light usage (email, web browsing, and word)?
Have we seen a demo of the speakers, mic, and webcam of the air vs pro?

Also, what do we recommend for dock that would allow her a single cable plug for a HDD, Displayport 1.4 monitor, and some usb ports?
 
delsoul said:
For the air with 8gb and a 7core...do you think it’s enough for daily use along with some video/photo editing and maybe some Logic Pro? How much of an issue is it only have 7 cores compared to the 8? I’m trying to get an idea just what kind of performance a base air is putting out compared to the base model i3
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I suspect an M1 with a 7-core GPU will still run circles around anything Intel offers in the way of iGPUs.
 
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robinp said:
No space constraints? Really? It’s not the width or height, but rather the depth (thickness of the screen lid). They are way thinner than phones.
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Yes, but they don’t have a PCB or antenna or battery or processors that need to fit into the lid either. Unless noise would be a problem you could mount the lens in its current location and run a cable to a thicker portion of the laptop and put them there.
 
delsoul said:
For the air with 8gb and a 7core...do you think it’s enough for daily use along with some video/photo editing and maybe some Logic Pro? How much of an issue is it only have 7 cores compared to the 8? I’m trying to get an idea just what kind of performance a base air is putting out compared to the base model i3
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The 7 core costs $50 / £50 less, once you order with the same SSD drive. If you have no need for 512 GB SSD and 256 GB is plenty for you, then it costs $250 / £250 less. I personally wouldn't spend £50 more for that eighth core, but I accept if others disagree. I definitely wouldn't spend £250 more for an eighth core if I don't need an SSD drive larger than 256 GB.
 
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I'll wait for competent unbiased review from Phoronix. If they give the thumbs up I'll wait for Macbook Air gen2 that can take standard NVMe SSD like the Surface Pro X because I'm not paying $800 for 2TB of sub NVMe gen 3 performance. Mac Mini doesn't make sense since if you have to plug into a wall outlet might as well build a much more powerful, versatile multi-boot MacOS/Windows/Linux and less costly Hackintosh. Macbook Pro doesn't make sense either due to the bulk while lacking touch and pen inputs.
 
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delsoul said:
For the air with 8gb and a 7core...do you think it’s enough for daily use along with some video/photo editing and maybe some Logic Pro? How much of an issue is it only have 7 cores compared to the 8? I’m trying to get an idea just what kind of performance a base air is putting out compared to the base model i3
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The new M1 MacBook Air smokes the previous one in every way (performance, battery life, thermals, etc). There's no reason anyone should buy the previous model MacBook Air under any circumstance. Anyone who wants an Intel Mac should only be looking at higher end models at the low end these new M1 Macs provide so much more performance and value there's no reason to consider the previous entry models.
 
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Got my MacBook Air 512GB today. After getting it setup I whacked World of Warcraft Shadowlands on it and f*** me, 60fps at high settings. Gets warm and chews through the battery at 1% per minute but I wasn't even expecting to be able to run anything like that, AND... it is currently running under Rosetta 2. The 9.0.2 patch which brings M1 support is tomorrow so I can't wait to see if that affects the running temps and performance. Seriously impressive.
 
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ArPe said:
Some of these YouTube reviewers must be noobs because they don’t understand their video editing apps are using proxies. Dave Lee actually seems to think Premiere was playing Red Raw proxyless.

Without an accelerator such as the Afterburner or Red Rocket there is no such thing as smooth proxyless Red Raw editing even on ridiculously powerful workstations with RTX cards.
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Sure about that?

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Pro Graphics Archives

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So . . . wow.

I bought a new 13" top of the line MBP earlier this year. I basically had to, but I really wish I'd been able to wait. These sound like a huge technological leap, the kind you rarely see these days. Bravo, Apple.
 
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