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I thought there was a fan on the i5 and i7 but not on the m3. In any case it would be interesting to know the battery life differences between the MacBooks with each CPU.
 
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I thought there was a fan on the i5 and i7 but not on the m3. In any case it would be interesting to know the battery life differences between the MacBooks with each CPU.
no fan for any CPU. why do you think? cos Intel marketing labeled m to i? they are all 4.5W
 
[QUOTE="I am very surprised that there is only 3,31% difference in Single-Core and just 10,13% in Multi-Core between the m3 and i7. I have been buying i7 since 2011 but I wonder if is worth to buy an i7 over an m3 in this case, not just because of the price (I am willing to pay the difference) but because of the fan noise (is there actually a fan on the i5 and i7?) and battery life..[/QUOTE]

It is surprising, and seems that the i5 with 512GB SSD is the sweet spot or the best value overall. BTW, there is no fan for any MacBook.
 
no fan for any CPU. why do you think? cos Intel marketing labeled m to i? they are all 4.5W

I do not know. Maybe I got that idea from the Surface Pro 4 (m3 is fanless while i5 and i7 has a fan).
 
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Got my MacBook from DHL yesterday ! But the CPU heat very cool ! When Google drive sync back my data , OS X said over heat !

Ssd speed very fast than my 2013 late MacBook Pro 15 !
 

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16 GB of RAM.
A few % of turbo clock which will throttle down to the same level during prolonged load anyway vs. double the RAM
The throttling makes the MacBook go down to normal clock speed? If so he would still get a small improvement with an u7 over an i5 also during prolonged load. In any case I agree with 16 GB RAM vs 8 GB RAM being a better improvement than i5 vs i7:

8GB RAM to 16GB RAM: 100% improvement in RAM
i5 vs i7: 7% improvement in clock and 11% in turbo boost.
 
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Ars has a review up with some more benchmarks of a 2017 m3 vs a 2016 m5:

https://arstechnica.com/apple/2017/06/mini-review-the-2017-macbook-comes-into-its-own/

In most benchmarks the m3 is slightly faster than the m5. In a long-running CPU intensive benchmark (Cinebench), throttling still severely limits performance compared to e.g. an MBP, but in the other benchmarks the gap is suprisingly small. Battery life is also better on the m3 than on the m5.

I think it terms of performance this is now a capable laptop for most standard tasks. However, I tried the new and old keyboards side by side at Bestbuy, and I didn't really experience as much of a difference as the Ars reviewer and some forum members stated. It's still pretty crappy IMO. Also, the single port remains a major inconvenience for my purposes. Overall the 2017 update still isn't quite good enough to convince me to upgrade the trusty 11" Air that I'm currently using when I need an ultraportable. :(
 
Ars has a review up with some more benchmarks of a 2017 m3 vs a 2016 m5:

https://arstechnica.com/apple/2017/06/mini-review-the-2017-macbook-comes-into-its-own/

In most benchmarks the m3 is slightly faster than the m5. In a long-running CPU intensive benchmark (Cinebench), throttling still severely limits performance compared to e.g. an MBP, but in the other benchmarks the gap is suprisingly small. Battery life is also better on the m3 than on the m5.

I think it terms of performance this is now a capable laptop for most standard tasks. However, I tried the new and old keyboards side by side at Bestbuy, and I didn't really experience as much of a difference as the Ars reviewer and some forum members stated. It's still pretty crappy IMO. Also, the single port remains a major inconvenience for my purposes. Overall the 2017 update still isn't quite good enough to convince me to upgrade the trusty 11" Air that I'm currently using when I need an ultraportable. :(

But that screen, so fuzzy, Retina just ruined all my old Macs, lol.
 
But that screen, so fuzzy, Retina just ruined all my old Macs, lol.
Well, the screen on the 11" Air is 135 PPI, which is acceptable IMO. Viewing angles, contrast and color are not up to modern standards of course. Not bad enough to accept the terrible keyboard and single port on the Macbook though. If only Apple would address these issues (which shouldn't be difficult), it would be an almost perfect ultraportable. :(
 
The following values are the median (I think it is a better reference than the average) of all the current data from Primate Labs' Geekbench Browser:

Benchmark 4
Single-Core Score Multi-Core Score​
MacBook10,1 Intel Core m3-7Y32 1200 MHz (2 cores) 3655 6856.5
MacBook10,1 Intel Core i5-7Y54 1300 MHz (2 cores) 3726 7239
MacBook10,1 Intel Core i7-7Y75 1400 MHz (2 cores) 3776 7551

Percentage difference between each CPU
MacBook10,1 Intel Core m3-7Y32 1200 MHz (2 cores) 3655 6856.5
MacBook10,1 Intel Core i5-7Y54 1300 MHz (2 cores) 3726 7239 +1.94% +5.58%
MacBook10,1 Intel Core i7-7Y75 1400 MHz (2 cores) 3776 7551 +1.34% +4.31%

Percentage difference between the less powerful (m3) and the most powerful (i7)
MacBook10,1 Intel Core m3-7Y32 1200 MHz (2 cores) 3655 6856.5
MacBook10,1 Intel Core i7-7Y75 1400 MHz (2 cores) 3776 7551 +3.31% +10.13%

Benchmark 3 (I would not trust Benchmark 3 because there is not enough data at this time)
MacBook10,1 Intel Core m3-7Y32 1200 MHz (2 cores) 2908.5 5807
MacBook10,1 Intel Core m3-7Y32 1200 MHz (2 cores) 2918 6040
MacBook10,1 Intel Core i7-7Y75 1400 MHz (2 cores) 3147 6781

I am very surprised that there is only 3,31% difference in Single-Core and just 10,13% in Multi-Core between the m3 and i7. I have been buying i7 since 2011 but I wonder if is worth to buy an i7 over an m3 in this case, not just because of the price (I am willing to pay the difference) but because of the fan noise (is there actually a fan on the i5 and i7?) and battery life..
I was all set to buy an i5 MacBook, until I learned that instead of the 7Y30 for the m3, Apple was using the newer 7Y32. Not only is this chip WAY faster than the 7Y30, it also supports HDCP 2.2 (although the updated 7Y30 also supports HDCP 2.2 now). The i5 seemed pointless, since the speed increase was at best marginal. IMO, the only reason to get the i5 is for the SSD storage space IMO. The next step up from the m3 IMO if you're just looking for CPU performance is the i7, but I personally feel the extra cost was not worth it in my scenario. I don't need the 512 GB SSD and I don't really need the performance boost either, since my main machine is an iMac. For that I just ordered an i7 with 1 TB SSD. I'm thinking the m3 will be great for office productivity apps and surfing, and will suffice for the very occasional vacation video while traveling. It will also be great for HEVC and VP9 playback, being Kaby Lake. i5/i7 provides no effective advantage here. Also, I wondered if the i7 would throttle more under heavy load. Some of the old m7 chips did throttle more than the m3, but I don't know if they've fixed this with the current i7 and MacBook design. (Geekbench 4 does not induce throttling because the test is too short.)

So, I ordered an m3 with 16 GB RAM. Arrives tomorrow.

Now I'm just trying to figure how best to test HEVC and VP9 hardware playback, given that we're still on Sierra, and High Sierra is only on beta 1. I started a thread on it here:

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...r-is-10-13-high-sierra-a-requirement.2051943/
 
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Well, the screen on the 11" Air is 135 PPI, which is acceptable IMO. Viewing angles, contrast and color are not up to modern standards of course. Not bad enough to accept the terrible keyboard and single port on the Macbook though. If only Apple would address these issues (which shouldn't be difficult), it would be an almost perfect ultraportable. :(
Actually I like the keyboard more than on the old MBP and Airs. It's very personal but I think u will adapt to it. Same for the single port. No doubt it is a bad design choice by apple and they should have at least put two inside. But I found myself that 90% of the time it's ok and for the rest I use a usbc hub. After some time u just don't think about it as a problem
 
Also, I wondered if the i7 would throttle more under heavy load. Some of the old m7 chips did throttle more than the m3, but I don't know if they've fixed this with the current i7 and MacBook design. (Geekbench 4 does not induce throttling because the test is too short.)

So, I ordered an m3 with 16 GB RAM. Arrives tomorrow.

Interesting... How can we get the proper/legit information about m3 vs i7 comparison re: temperature/throttle etc. ??
 
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