MacBook Air M2 - 8 vs 10 core GPU - Thermals and Battery Life?

[Gelam]

Hey all, I have ordered two MacBook Air M2 and will be researching, reading reviews (when they come out) and decide which one to cancel/return.

- 8 core GPU / 24gb ram / 1tb SSD
- 10 core GPU / 24gb ram / 1tb SSD

I want to know what the trade offs are by going with the 8 or 10 core GPU.
From what I researched so far these are the potential trade offs:

8 core GPU

• Cannot occasionally game (War Thunder and Resident Evil Village at max settings) when away from main PC.
• Potentially more laggy OS and webpage UI experience 8 years in the future when webpages become more demanding
• Potentially more laggy OS UI experience when connected to 6k display 8 years down the line when UI becomes more demanding?

10 core GPU

• About 30 - 40 minutes lesser battery life for light web browsing load. That would be roughly 5 - 7% lesser battery than the 8 core GPU version.
  • And the hypothetical non linear decrease in battery life compared to the 8 core GPU version as webpage and OS UI becomes more demanding 5+ years in the future. For example each core using more power to render webpage than now, so the 2 extra cores will cost more unit of energy than it will now, and the battery life difference between the 8 and 10 core GPU might be 10%+ in the future.
• Potentially higher temperature at idle and light load?
  • And the hypothetical non linear increase in temperature at idle and light load 5 - 8 years in the future as webpage and OS UI becomes more demanding.
• Potentially significantly higher temperature at heavy loads?

Sources to come at these conclusion are:

• My experience of my old 2015 15" 2.5GHz MacBook Pro was silent and cool back in 2016 when watching videos and browsing reddit. Now only watching YouTube causes the fans to spin and the laptop getting really hot. Battery life is 3 hrs with light use. The 2.2GHz still has lower temperature and longer battery life due to the lower clock speed.
• Looking at the notebook check review of 7 core and 8 core M1 MacBook Air showed a 15-30 minutes difference in battery life during light load (and heavier loads). While the 16" M1 Pro vs M1 Max had up to 2 hours difference in battery life for light load.

If the difference in battery life is small enough and will remain the same ratio in the future, I will opt for the 10 core GPU for the headroom (I am okay with the $150 price difference). But if the reviews and data comes in that the difference is high (45 minutes to 1 hour+ battery life difference) and will be higher in the future, I might go for 8 core GPU instead.

Data that would be useful will come from notebookcheck and maybe wattage data at idle and light load.

What were your choices in your pre orders? Please feel free to share your reasoning and if you have any data/links that will help shed light in the above "trade offs" hypothesis, please do share! I need it!

 

[russell_314]

I picked the 10 core GPU because I occasionally play WoW classic. It ran fine on my iMac with the 8 core but I figured two more can’t hurt. If I was going to play games I would have chosen the 8 core

 

[calstanford]

Where are you coming up with this random stuff?
"Potentially more laggy OS and webpage UI experience 8 years in the future when webpages become more demanding"

Totally made up bla.

 

[jav6454]

Hey all, I have ordered two MacBook Air M2 and will be researching, reading reviews (when they come out) and decide which one to cancel/return.

[...]

What were your choices in your pre orders? Please feel free to share your reasoning and if you have any data/links that will help shed light in the above "trade offs" hypothesis, please do share! I need it!

Three things here:

1. Thank you for buying two machines which obviously you will return one [sarcasm]
2. Gaming wise, light games on an MBA yes, anything else, you'll throttle.
3. 10 v 8: if you are asking you will not notice the difference.

 

[happyslayer]

When first announced, I was going to go more "hardcore" and order the 10 core with 16GB and 512SSD, similar to my current base-model 14 Pro. But looking at my actual use over the last 9 months with the Pro, I realized that it was mostly overkill. I do pretty basic stuff, use only 100GB of the SSD, but need it almost everyday, off and on throughout the day to do my job. So, ordering choice ultimately came down to portability and battery life. I will carry it almost everywhere I go throughout the day and anything that could increase battery life, including the smaller core count, is good for me. I always think I'll maybe play a game on my laptop when away from my gaming rig, but I never do. So I went base model in the hopes of it just running a bit cooler and with longer battery time. As a bonus, it was quite a bit cheaper.

 

[Gelam]

I picked the 10 core GPU because I occasionally play WoW classic. It ran fine on my iMac with the 8 core but I figured two more can’t hurt. If I was going to play games I would have chosen the 8 core

That is my hope that it will be around 15 - 20% more FPS compared to 8 core

Where are you coming up with this random stuff?
"Potentially more laggy OS and webpage UI experience 8 years in the future when webpages become more demanding"

Totally made up bla.

From the original post, I mention having the 2015 15" MBP. Now I have to say that it has the AMD dGPU as well. Back in 2016 I can scroll and zoom in out of reddit and YouTube smoothly with the intel integrated graphics. However recently from 2020 onwards till now, scrolling/zooming becomes more laggy with the iGPU. The computer gets hot as well even if I recently re paste the thermal paste and clean the dust off.

When I force switch to the AMD dGPU, the scrolling and zooming becomes smooth again at the cost of so much more heat too. Hence the assumption that webpages becomes more demanding as time goes on. And that the 10 core GPU M2 might be 15 - 20% smoother than the 8 core GPU version in UI experience. It will not be noticeable now but might be 5 years down the line.

Three things here:

1. Thank you for buying two machines which obviously you will return one [sarcasm]
2. Gaming wise, light games on an MBA yes, anything else, you'll throttle.
3. 10 v 8: if you are asking you will not notice the difference.

1. Hopefully it will become a good deal on the refurbish store
2. If gaming I plan on blasting aircon and desk fan blow directly on the mac. Hopefully it will reduce the throttle?
3. Hopefully there will be no difference for my use.

When first announced, I was going to go more "hardcore" and order the 10 core with 16GB and 512SSD, similar to my current base-model 14 Pro. But looking at my actual use over the last 9 months with the Pro, I realized that it was mostly overkill. I do pretty basic stuff, use only 100GB of the SSD, but need it almost everyday, off and on throughout the day to do my job. So, ordering choice ultimately came down to portability and battery life. I will carry it almost everywhere I go throughout the day and anything that could increase battery life, including the smaller core count, is good for me. I always think I'll maybe play a game on my laptop when away from my gaming rig, but I never do. So I went base model in the hopes of it just running a bit cooler and with longer battery time. As a bonus, it was quite a bit cheaper.

Did you get the 256gb version? Are you concerned of the half speed SSD due to it being only 1 chip instead of 2?

 

[mxrider88]

Laggy because of 8gpu instead of 10? Nonsense..

I think not having a fan the 10 gpu will throttle more frequently and therefore perform the same or even worse compared to the 8 gpu.

The sweet spot I think is 8c, 16, 512.

I say 512 just because the 256 is proven to be a massive bottleneck with just one ssd.

 

[Kayakphotos]

Laggy because of 8gpu instead of 10? Nonsense..

I think not having a fan the 10 gpu will throttle more frequently and therefore perform the same or even worse compared to the 8 gpu.

The sweet spot I think is 8c, 16, 512.

I say 512 just because the 256 is proven to be a massive bottleneck with just one ssd.

Wouldn't the extra RAM negate the "bottleneck" effect if you went 8c, 16, 256 due to minimizing the amount of swap used?

 

[jdb8167]

I think not having a fan the 10 gpu will throttle more frequently and therefore perform the same or even worse compared to the 8 gpu.

Why would Apple design a new 10 core GPU and a new chassis to house it so that it would get worse performance than the binned 8 core version? This makes sense to you? It sounds ridiculous to me.

 

[Pug72]

And me.

 

[mxrider88]

Why would Apple design a new 10 core GPU and a new chassis to house it so that it would get worse performance than the binned 8 core version? This makes sense to you? It sounds ridiculous to me.

Pure marketing. They also put a single ssd and got you worse performance.
They care about profit not performance.
The 10c will perform better if actively cooled obviously, but not passively cooled in the air

 

[mxrider88]

Wouldn't the extra RAM negate the "bottleneck" effect if you went 8c, 16, 256 due to minimizing the amount of swap used?

Surely it will help, but still if you have a slow read you have a slow read.. at some stage you have to read and write data.

I just think the top performance will come from the 8c, 16, 512 on the air m2.

 

[jdb8167]

Pure marketing. They also put a single ssd and got you worse performance.
They care about profit not performance.
The 10c will perform better if actively cooled obviously, but not passively cooled in the air

That's ridiculous. How do you know that the 10 core GPU won't perform better? Based on what test? Will the 10 core scale linearly up from the 8 core? No one knows yet but it isn't going to be worse than a binned version of the same SoC. The SSD thing is unfortunate but a completely different issue probably related to the current supply chain issues in the industry.

 

[mxrider88]

That's ridiculous. How do you know that the 10 core GPU won't perform better? Based on what test? Will the 10 core scale linearly up from the 8 core? No one knows yet but it isn't going to be worse than a binned version of the same SoC. The SSD thing is unfortunate but a completely different issue probably related to the current supply chain issues in the industry.

If you don’t understand the concept of throttling and heat, don’t try to make me look ridiculous.

In the ideal word, obviously, 10c performs better than 8.

In the real word, 10c generates more heat than 8c and therefore in the same thermal envelope, without active cooling, it will not scale linearly. It might perform better for a short burst but if you need the 10c is not for a short burst but for some rendering or gaming and then the excess heat will get the system to throttle. It is very likely that it will throttle earlier than the 8c and then defeat the purpose of the 2 extra cores.

It’s logic, pure logic.

If you think you need 2 extra gpu cores on a MacBook Air, you are buying the wrong machine. The machine for you is the m1 pro because that’s the machine for the kind of workflow you are trying to push on the air.

 

[jdb8167]

It’s logic, pure logic.

Ah, good enough I guess. You don't need any proof when you have logic.🤔

 

[Wokis]

If you don’t understand the concept of throttling and heat, don’t try to make me look ridiculous.

In the ideal word, obviously, 10c performs better than 8.

In the real word, 10c generates more heat than 8c and therefore in the same thermal envelope, without active cooling, it will not scale linearly. It might perform better for a short burst but if you need the 10c is not for a short burst but for some rendering or gaming and then the excess heat will get the system to throttle. It is very likely that it will throttle earlier than the 8c and then defeat the purpose of the 2 extra cores.

It’s logic, pure logic.

If you think you need 2 extra gpu cores on a MacBook Air, you are buying the wrong machine. The machine for you is the m1 pro because that’s the machine for the kind of workflow you are trying to push on the air.

A GPU core has a sweet spot in perf/watt (which translates to heat) related to what frequency it is run at and it is entirely possible that the 10c can sustain higher absolute performance by running, throttled, at lower frequencies while the 8c can't run in a high enough frequency within its throttled envelope to match.

It's probably not worth the money for most, but I'd expect the 10c to eek out a win with the upcoming tests.

 

[mxrider88]

A GPU core has a sweet spot in perf/watt (which translates to heat) related to what frequency it is run at and it is entirely possible that the 10c can sustain higher absolute performance by running, throttled, at lower frequencies while the 8c can't run in a high enough frequency within its throttled envelope to match.

It's probably not worth the money for most, but I'd expect the 10c to eek out a win with the upcoming tests.

Now this is a constructive comment.

You surely have a valid point here.
I am very curious to see a few real world tests on YouTube!

 

[Gelam]

Laggy because of 8gpu instead of 10? Nonsense..

I think not having a fan the 10 gpu will throttle more frequently and therefore perform the same or even worse compared to the 8 gpu.

The sweet spot I think is 8c, 16, 512.

I say 512 just because the 256 is proven to be a massive bottleneck with just one ssd.

Not laggy per say, I meant 8 gpu might be more laggy than 10. Which might be non existence in the first place, or very very little like one stuttering in 100 days.

I am concern about throttling as well and is eager for notebookcheck to review both the 8 and 10 gpu versions for solid data. Absolutely when I plan to game on it I will blast aircon and desk fan on the MacBook Air. I also have a laptop cooling fan pad as well.

I understand about the 256. If people can avoid it, do so!

 

[Gelam]

A GPU core has a sweet spot in perf/watt (which translates to heat) related to what frequency it is run at and it is entirely possible that the 10c can sustain higher absolute performance by running, throttled, at lower frequencies while the 8c can't run in a high enough frequency within its throttled envelope to match.

It's probably not worth the money for most, but I'd expect the 10c to eek out a win with the upcoming tests.

Hopefully it does not hit the ceiling and throttle so much that the advantage is very little. I predict the 10 core GPU at least 10 - 15% more compute than the 8 core GPU during long heavy workloads. What is your estimate?

 

[Gelam]

Wouldn't the extra RAM negate the "bottleneck" effect if you went 8c, 16, 256 due to minimizing the amount of swap used?

More ram certainly will negate some bottleneck effect. Which bottleneck effect are you particularly talking about?

 

[jav6454]

More ram certainly will negate some bottleneck effect. Which bottleneck effect are you particularly talking about?

The potential bottleneck of the SSD speed dropping due to possibly only having 1 NAND 256GB chip vs two 128GB chips enabling parallelism.

 

[Gelam]

The potential bottleneck of the SSD speed dropping due to possibly only having 1 NAND 256GB chip vs two 128GB chips enabling parallelism.

Oh thank you! So it will maybe make browser reloads slower, moving between desktops laggier, and having large PDFs and excel laggier?

 

[mxrider88]

Oh thank you! So it will maybe make browser reloads slower, moving between desktops laggier, and having large PDFs and excel laggier?

Technically every operation that needs reading and writing on the ssd will be slower. Practically I think you will notice it only when putting the system under pressure. I wouldn't imagine moving between desktops gets laggier, maybe opening apps or files of a certain size. It will still be a fast laptop, but in my opinion it is just unacceptable that they don't mention it anywhere and that you pay more over the m1 air to get a slower ssd.
I am sure many wont even notice and still feel like the new Mac is faster than the older one, because that's how it always feels..

 

[jav6454]

Oh thank you! So it will maybe make browser reloads slower, moving between desktops laggier, and having large PDFs and excel laggier?

Loading a web page is more of a function of having enough memory to prevent hitting the Swap. In case of hitting Swap, yes, you will notice a slow down.

As per "laggier" on PDFs and the OS in general, it depends. If you day to day usage is to move files under 50MB, you literally won't notice the difference as what matters mostly is random 4K @ QD1 speeds. Those are fast enough for all day to day tasks. Heck the OS has more files that are basically sub 50MB in size.

As per PDFs, if its big you might see 1 to 2 seconds extra time to copy/paste. At highest sequential speeds the SSD does 1.4GB/s

 

[d4rk]

I got the 8 core GPU / 16GB / 1TB. This was based on me owning a M1 MacBook Air for the past year. It’s been more than powerful for all my use cases. I figure if I can eke out any extra battery life that’s worth it for me vs having two more GPU cores. I never game. Any video editing I do in Final Cut Pro already works just fine on my M1 Air.