I just p[icked up an air with 16gb and 1tb and am really loving it. It almost seems faster using photo mechanic and Lightroom than my 27" iMac with 64gb ram quad i7 4.2. Am I feeling a placebo effect or is the M1 really that much better? I am thinking of ditching the iMac and using the air as my main computer connected to a 27" 4k when at home. How are people doing with long term every day usage as their main machine? or should I wait till there are 27" M1 iMacs?
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Is it new M1 Air placebo or is it really faster than my 27" 2017 iMac?
- Thread starter JoeFkling
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do you really need to ask after there are now probably hundreds of videos on youtube and articles showing really big results
My observation about it is that the x86 macOS is sluggish relative to ARM equivalent. When TB is disabled then x86 is pathetically sluggish.
My wife has the same iMac and we just did a nuke & pave on it. Only loaded the apps she frequently uses. Still felt slow compared to my M1 iMac. She has 32gb memory to my 16.
Ditch the iMac. The M1 Air gives you the best of both worlds: mobile and desktop. 4k monitors are perfect for macOS. Retina (high DPI) monitors are overrated for desktop use. At a reasonable distance it's almost impossible to tell the difference.
The new Air is well suited for long term daily usage. Just be sure to keep between 20 to 30 percent of your flash storage empty to extend the usable life of the laptop.
If you need extra storage, ports, etc. it's easy enough to attach a Thunderbolt dock.
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This is exactly what I've done. M1 MBA, 27" LG 4K desktop monitor. Perfect. Screen looks amazing, macOS looks amazing, and the M1's performance is great. And unlike a 27" iMac I can unplug the MBA and use it from the couch
It's indeed faster for some stuff. I'm not surprised that you are seeing a noticeable effect for photo editing — communicating between the CPU and the GPU on M1 is much faster than on the iMac, even if the iMac has nominally faster GPU. In general, M1 has lower latencies for many workloads, which will translate to direct improvements in responsiveness.
Well, if you disable TB, a fancy i9 loses 50-60% of it's performance, so it's not particularly surprising. TB is essential to x86 burst performance, disabling it takes away all the advantages of the platform.
Well, if you disable TB, a fancy i9 loses 50-60% of it's performance, so it's not particularly surprising. TB is essential to x86 burst performance, disabling it takes away all the advantages of the platform.
This is simply not true, sorry.
I have found some YouTubers are amazed even at render speeds of the M1 processor is amazes them in the M1 Mini videos handling 4k as well sas 1080 in FinalCut Pro!
Currently connected to the iMac is a TB3 dock and connected to that is a 4bay raid. I pass the 2nd monitor through it which saves me a port on the dock. Im thinking that you are right and its time to ditch the iMac. Will it support 2 monitors this way or am I stuck with just the 1 4k? Thats not a deal breaker and I am finding that the 2nd monitor is simply becoming a TV and with sidecar I always have an extra iPad around if I need screen space. Hmmm, guess its time to pass it on.
Unfortunately the M1 MacBooks support only one attached monitor. The new MacBook Pros rumoured to release this year will probably support more than one monitor with upgraded Apple silicon, as may the next Macbook Air rumoured to arrive next year.
I think it depends. I have an inexpensive LG 24" 4K (~183 dpi) that is not quite a Retina but looks fine to me at either 1920x1080 or 2560x1440. My eyes are pretty old and have never been particularly sharp so it is possible that someone else could see a difference but for me, spending more on a 5K display wouldn't really do much for me. I'm not sure that a 27" at 4K would be imperceptible to me though. That is much less dpi at about 163.
I agree, not everyone has the same eyesight. But from this to write "At a reasonable distance it's almost impossible to tell the difference"... I stand by my "not true". I can tell the difference without problems (44 yo), maybe I'm lucky. Btw with 164 ppi scaled I agree that you can have some resolutions still not "retina" but close enough. (LG 34wk95u with 3008x1269 is fine coming from a 27" retina)
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I have a 2017 27" iMac with the Radeon 580 Pro. I think the only place where your iMac is technically superior is in raw GPU power. While there is more than GPU to any task (which is why the M1 feels so much faster) I believe the M1 only has about 50% of the power of the highest-end GPU in that generation of iMac.
I'm basing this on both the advertised TFLOPs as well as the Metal scores. Per Geekbench, the M1 is getting a Metal score of about 21,700 whereas when I ran Geekbench 5 on my iMac I got a score of 41,504.
I'm basing this on both the advertised TFLOPs as well as the Metal scores. Per Geekbench, the M1 is getting a Metal score of about 21,700 whereas when I ran Geekbench 5 on my iMac I got a score of 41,504.
Geekbench scores are not affected by the placebo effect; just compare them.
A more relevant question is "does it matter?" Even if the M1 only felt faster, so what, your experience will be of a faster computer.
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This is true, however even my iPad with A12Z does certain metal accelerated tasks faster than my iMac with 580 Pro. So numbers in this case don't mean much. It's about the entire SoC and how it all works together.
Agreed theres a sharpness to the ultrafine 4k/5k and the XDR that you dont really get with the other monitors. Ive been at the apple store and microcenter and have to come to the unfortunate conclusion that for desktop use I will probably have the get one of the ultrafine's (since i dont have $6k lying around lol).
I edit 8K RAW without proxy in FCP without any issues on my Mac mini M1.
I continue to be pleasantly surprised by my M1 MBA even after all these months of owning it. I use it with multiple spaces/apps open at all times, and it's become an indispensable tool for me in a way that my 12.9" iPad Pro with Magic Keyboard AND my 2019 15" MBP from work never could be. It's thinner and lighter than both machines, it runs forever on one battery charge, it never burns my leg skin under high load, it never makes any noise, and it is FAAAAAAST. That's not even to mention that the good keyboards are finally back, and the trackpad is actually big enough to allow me to pinch and zoom without running out of space.
In other words, it eliminates all the things I hated about my Intel Macs from past years, it puts me back in a multitasking comfort zone that iPadOS just doesn't have yet, and it more or less perfects the notebook form factor, even though it's encased in an older design.
You can argue about amounts/types of ports, webcam quality, etc., but pound for pound, this is the Macbook I've been wanting for a long time. The iPad Pro did a nice job filling in for a few years, but this beats it.
In other words, it eliminates all the things I hated about my Intel Macs from past years, it puts me back in a multitasking comfort zone that iPadOS just doesn't have yet, and it more or less perfects the notebook form factor, even though it's encased in an older design.
You can argue about amounts/types of ports, webcam quality, etc., but pound for pound, this is the Macbook I've been wanting for a long time. The iPad Pro did a nice job filling in for a few years, but this beats it.
i don't ditch my imac .. both have their usage. macbook air for travel and some testing swift ui. i wouldn't suggest to get new m1 mac
Would the M1 Mini meet your needs? It is internally the same as the M1 Air/MBP but can support 2 external monitors. one with thunderbolt and one with hdmi.
(one caveat, it looks like the M1 mini shares a problem with the Intel min, the case tends to interfere with bluetooth. some users are running it upside down and get better reception.)
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