MacBook Air M2 with 10-cores -- have you noticed any issues?

[jason2811]

There have been a bunch of posts and YouTube videos saying that the 8-core is better than the 10-core because once you push the laptop to a certain point there is a slowdown that occurs in the 10-core.

Those who have the 10-core have you noticed any issues at all? Or has the laptop been as nice and fast as you expected?

Thanks!

 

[G5isAlive]

No issues here, love mine. But i dont run benchmarks for click bait.

 

[canadianpj]

No issues whatsoever. But like other in this thread I don't, and won't, run a benchmark but I don't care.

 

[ozthegweat]

There have been a bunch of posts and YouTube videos saying that the 8-core is better than the 10-core because once you push the laptop to a certain point there is a slowdown that occurs in the 10-core.

Sustained workloads are a very rare occurrence for most people who don't do things like video rendering or code compiling. Most of the time, a CPU is idle, and there are only short spikes in CPU load. With a 10-core CPU, those short spikes are shorter. So e.g. exporting a bunch of pictures with Photos might take 8 seconds instead of 10 seconds. And even if you do things that take longer, throttling only happens after 5 minutes I believe.

If you want that minor, but somewhat noticeable bump in performance, go for it, but not on a model with 8GB RAM and/or 256GB SSD. Invest that money in 1. 16GB RAM and 2. 512GB SSD first, you will get more performance for your buck out of those upgrades IMO. And if you do sustained workloads regularly, 10 cores won't do much for you, and you should be looking for an actively cooled model

 

[jav6454]

There have been a bunch of posts and YouTube videos saying that the 8-core is better than the 10-core because once you push the laptop to a certain point there is a slowdown that occurs in the 10-core.

Those who have the 10-core have you noticed any issues at all? Or has the laptop been as nice and fast as you expected?

Thanks!

It will happen under certain conditions. Rule of thumb, if you are asking if you need extra cores, likely you never needed them in the first place.

I would have advised to save that cash for memory upgrades.

 

[Wokis]

No. Though I've only seen one youtube video claiming lower performance on what was clearly a margin of error difference. Sensationalist youtuber with "reacton edits", really bad one. Even Max Tech couldn't find and report such an issue and you know they would gladly do it.

Still, when you're at thermal capacity there is essentially no difference between 10c and 8c. If you're getting a beefier GPU for the idea of some side gaming (a typical sustained load) it's a bad idea and won't net much of a gain beyond your first five minutes of play.

The only exception would be if you're willing to add a thermal pad but tbh I've already opened up and checked, and due to the thinness of the aluminium plate this generation I would advise against even opening this thing once (until the due-date for the battery). Youtubers don't care if they end up warping the bottom by a degree but end-users will.

If you want a beefier GPU because you have a workflow where the GPU isn't taxed 100% of the time, the 10c GPU can start to make more sense.

 

[JamesGoodman]

Not a hiccup. And I also have a Pro M1.

 

[jdb8167]

I haven't done a lot of testing yet. I haven't had time but I will this week. I'm planning on running comparisons of various 3D/Graphics benchmarks (yeah, I know but I'm still gonna) between an 8 GPU core M1 MacBook Air and a 10 GPU core M2 MacBook Air. I'll post the results here at some point.

 

[russell_314]

No issues with mine... Ignore Max tech on YouTube. The guy doesn't understand what context is.

If you're doing workloads that are going to peg the CPU and GPU at 100% for extended periods don't buy a MacBook Air and expect high performance. Buy a MacBook Pro. I love my M2 Air but it's a tool and it has its purpose. If you're trying to drive nails with a screwdriver you won't be happy regardless of the screwdriver you buy.

 

[jav6454]

No issues with mine... Ignore Max tech on YouTube. The guy doesn't understand what context is.

If you're doing workloads that are going to peg the CPU and GPU at 100% for extended periods don't buy a MacBook Air and expect high performance. Buy a MacBook Pro. I love my M2 Air but it's a tool and it has its purpose. If you're trying to drive nails with a screwdriver you won't be happy regardless of the screwdriver you buy.

Not exactly the right way of expressing it. Correct way is that the tests performed are stress tests which likely will not apply to everyone (or hardly everyone). Hence, taking stress tests as a standard is ridiculous as that's a fringe case.

Real world is a whole other thing.

 

[Toratek]

Zero issues of any sort after two weeks. 10-core/16gb/1TB. Don’t forget, the M2 is baseline designed as a 10-core chip, the 8 core models are using binned chips.

 

[G5isAlive]

No issues with mine.

 

[russell_314]

Not exactly the right way of expressing it. Correct way is that the tests performed are stress tests which likely will not apply to everyone (or hardly everyone). Hence, taking stress tests as a standard is ridiculous as that's a fringe case.

Real world is a whole other thing.

I totally agree. I’m just saying if your job is editing 8K video then perhaps a MacBook Air isn’t for you but that should be obvious. When MacBook Air was Intel no one would even consider using that as their primary video editing computer but now that it’s Apple Silicon people think somehow that should be a thing

 

[G5isAlive]

I totally agree. I’m just saying if your job is editing 8K video then perhaps a MacBook Air isn’t for you but that should be obvious. When MacBook Air was Intel no one would even consider using that as their primary video editing computer but now that it’s Apple Silicon people think somehow that should be a thing

Give them an inch and they will take a mile? To some extent this is Apple's fault (can't believe I am saying this), by sticking in the specialized silicon for image processing and their marketing of its editing power they sorta invite the comparison. But yes, I totally agree common sense applies, a base MacBook Air may be okay for getting your feet wet, but if you are serious about video editing you will need one of the models better suited for it (like have an active cooling system?)

And yes, I too get irritated how results from stress tests are blown out of proportion by click bait artists and their followers. How often are people going to export 50 high res photos (from expensive cameras they probably don't own) from adobe Lightroom so that the 30 seconds they might save is mission critical to your life?? If it's often, the base machine isn't for you. If its never, as it is for a lot of people, then ignore the click bait.

but what is worse for me, is the people that come to MR, use the click bait as a club to rant about a machine they were never going to buy in the first place.