If future MBA's are fanless, isn't that a bad thing?

[joshlalonde]

Hey,

I love my MacBook Air. It has far exceeded my expectations. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that you CAN play decent 3D games; Warframe, Skyrim, etc. It runs them beautifully on medium to lower settings.

But, if the new Macbook Air doesn't have a fan, even with the more efficient CPU, won't that mean that you can't expect the same performance? That is, would it more prone to throttle like the Surface Pro 3 currently does?

Or perhaps I'm silly to think that Intel's next CPU isn't going to be a dramatic change?

Doesn't affect me currently, but if I want to get an Air in the future..
Then again, maybe by that time we'll use fiber optic based processors and heat won't be a problem.

 

[iSee]

Not necessarily.

It's all speculation at this point, so there's not much to base a debate on, either.

As we've seen with the Air and Air 2 it's possible to have a pretty powerful CPU and GPU in a fanless device. Things are moving pretty fast in that area so who knows what Intel or Apple might be able to do in the next generation or two.

And I hope we don't use the surface pro 3 as the benchmark for anything!

 

[motrek]

...
But, if the new Macbook Air doesn't have a fan, even with the more efficient CPU, won't that mean that you can't expect the same performance? That is, would it more prone to throttle like the Surface Pro 3 currently does?
...

Right. Your current CPU probably has a TDP of 15W. Intel has claimed a 30% power reduction with Broadwell chips, so to get the same performance you'd need a ~10W chip.

10W still produces much too much heat to run without a fan.

The argument for fanless is that it would allow Apple to make laptops that are 1) thinner and 2) quieter. Thinner because MacBooks have fans at the hinge, which means they have to fit under the keyboard, which means they are a limiting factor in laptop thickness. Quieter is obvious.

Personally I think MBAs are already thin and quiet enough and I'd be reluctant to buy any laptop that doesn't have a fan.