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Macbook Air 2020 record high score on geekbench when case fan is at full blast

N

nnoob

macrumors regular
Original poster
Dec 7, 2006
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Yea, unfortunately youtubers think they know more than Apple's engineers. It's a hell of a lot faster than my thinkpad 6200u dual core i5 which scores: 632/1528
 
This notebook computer is designed with a maximum thermal limit of 100°C.

The way the system is designed, the CPU can run at its maximum frequency for a short while (Turbo Boost mode) before the CPU temperature being to climb. At this point the fan will speed up to maximum rotation (8000 rpm) after which the system will throttle the CPU frequency to maintain the 100°C limit.

If you want to witness this, install Intel Power Gadget and XRG. Then use Handbrake to transcode video in 10-bit H.265 mode. This forces software encoding since the T2 Security Chip will only do 8-bit video encoding (H.264 or H.265/HEVC).

This system design was not intended for prolonged 100°C loads.

My MacBook Air 2019's fan is unsurprisingly noisier than my Mac mini 2018's fan (max speed 4400 rpm). The latter is actually quiet enough maxed out to not be quite a nuisance; clearly the engineers designed the Mac mini to be more suitable for prolonged CPU loads.

All current Macs have a maximum thermal design limit that is below what the corresponding CPUs can produce. That's why there are fans. This is not unique to the MacBook Air.

Hell, this isn't unique to computers. Your car has an engine cooling system (water-cooled radiator or in rare instances an air-cooled engine) that does the same thing.
 
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Erehy Dobon said:
This system design was not intended for prolonged 100°C loads.
Click to expand...

Look at the CPU package wattage limit, max is 10 watt give or take after the turbo boost/heat limit.
It is within the wattage limit of what the heat sink is designed for prolonged system load.
Buy a Macbook Pro 13 inch if you want serious performance which has a higher wattage limit which is 28 watt compared to macbook air which is 10 watt.
 
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nnoob said:
Hey guys,

the case fan does work well and I ran the benchmark on the Macbook 2020 i5 with 8000 RPM. This proves it and I don't know why other people and youtuber keep claiming the macbook air fan doesn't do anything.

Here is my score: https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/1618275
[automerge]1585497262[/automerge]
this is my score normally: https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/1618515
Click to expand...
I'm really intrigued by why the single core tests here score so high. The turbo on this CPU is only 3.5Ghz...
How does it get a SC score of nearly 1200?
This is close to the SC scores of top end MBPro and iMac. And higher than the i7 Mac mini that has a boost speed of 4.6Ghz and a TDP of 65Watts.
Something seems not right...
 
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Spectrum said:
I'm really intrigued by why the single core tests here score so high. The turbo on this CPU is only 3.5Ghz...
How does it get a SC score of nearly 1200?
This is close to the SC scores of top end MBPro and iMac. And higher than the i7 Mac mini that has a boost speed of 4.6Ghz and a TDP of 65Watts.
Something seems not right...
Click to expand...

I noticed that. That blew my mind when I saw that.
 
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Spectrum said:
I'm really intrigued by why the single core tests here score so high. The turbo on this CPU is only 3.5Ghz...
How does it get a SC score of nearly 1200?
This is close to the SC scores of top end MBPro and iMac. And higher than the i7 Mac mini that has a boost speed of 4.6Ghz and a TDP of 65Watts.
Something seems not right...
Click to expand...

Ice lake (the CPU generation in the new Air) has improved instructions per clock (15% or more, so those 3.5ghz are "worth" more like 4ghz vs. older platform) and a FAR better GPU than previous model processors (like 2x performance - which will impact things like quicksync).

This might seem strange vs. the past 10 years of new processors (because intel did a lot of sitting on a** in terms of CPU design since 2011) but the architecture improvements in ice lake are significant. There's about 2-3 cpu generations worth of performance improvement (at same clock) in ice lake vs. the past decade of CPU updates from intel. They just need to figure out how to make them clock higher now.

This is what happens when we have CPU competition, since AMD recovered from their bulldozer CPU disaster and put out Ryzen. Intel are trying now.
 
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throAU said:
Ice lake (the CPU generation in the new Air) has improved instructions per clock (15% or more, so those 3.5ghz are "worth" more like 4ghz vs. older platform) and a FAR better GPU than previous model processors (like 2x performance - which will impact things like quicksync).

This might seem strange vs. the past 10 years of new processors (because intel did a lot of sitting on a** in terms of CPU design since 2011) but the architecture improvements in ice lake are significant. There's about 2-3 cpu generations worth of performance improvement (at same clock) in ice lake vs. the past decade of CPU updates from intel. They just need to figure out how to make them clock higher now.

This is what happens when we have CPU competition, since AMD recovered from their bulldozer CPU disaster and put out Ryzen. Intel are trying now.
Click to expand...

Well this might just be my long-awaited upgrade to a 2014 3Ghz i7 dual core 13 inch MBPro. Added bonus is that it has a similarly good keyboard and no touchbar! 👍

The annoying parts still arise of course though: no HDMI, no SD card slot, no USBA, and no MagSafe...
 
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Spectrum said:
Well this might just be my long-awaited upgrade to a 2014 3Ghz i7 dual core 13 inch MBPro. Added bonus is that it has a similarly good keyboard and no touchbar! 👍

The annoying parts still arise of course though: no HDMI, no SD card slot, no USBA, and no MagSafe...
Click to expand...

USB-A and HDMI are covered with a USBC-Digital multi out adapter (mine already arrived, now i just need the 2020 air to show up :D). Or a dock.

I plan to get both - a dock for the desk and the adapter can go in the bag.

Yeah, no USB-A kinda blows, but (and this time for real) USB-C/Thunderbolt is the future. The licensing fees expired in the past couple of years so even PC gear is getting on the thunderbolt train now.

I'd rather have USB-C/Thunderbolt3 ports than anything else on a thin/light. Its rare that i actually use ports on my Macbook Pro and at least with the USB-C style thunderbolt you can have charge/display/thunderbolt in one single cable to your dock or USB-C monitor.
 
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