Just want to post this thread after playing civilization VI on my MacBook Air. Admittedly not a graphics intensive game by today's standards, but it's so much more pleasing to run these games without fans whining in the background. My MacBook was on my lap the whole time and didn't burn my skin off. Actually felt cooler than my fairly recent 2020 13" MacBook Pro with a fan. This is a huge game changer for me!
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No fan = awesome!
- Thread starter DoNoHarm
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The new M1 MBA is quite impressive.
I'm wondering how long it will be until software developers start intensifying their code to take advantage of the new processors to the point where things get hot again.
I'm wondering how long it will be until software developers start intensifying their code to take advantage of the new processors to the point where things get hot again.
That can't really happen. The M1 MacBook Air is limited to about 15 Watts and that is only until it starts to heat up and then it throttles down to about 7 Watts. No amount of code is going to override those limits because they are done with hardware.
Well, I'm in my 30's and my teenage days of building my own gaming computer are long behind me. For my use case, playing a strategy game like civilization or watching YouTube videos while doing my work after my two kids have gone to bed, this computer is a huge improvement, a gamechanger. I just went over to this from the latest gen MacBook Pro and it's like night and day. Hats off to apple for making such an amazing product.
So in five years someone will be posting that their M1 Mac keeps throttling down while browsing with Chrome. Same idea.
I also love having a fanless laptop!! It's insane how fast, cool, and quiet the M1 Air is. Especially for working at night. Sure, in 5+ years maybe software will leave this machine behind and push it so hard that it is constantly throttling. But even when driven to the wall, and thus fully throttled, the machine is way faster than my "old" 2020 MBP. And it doesn't sound like a jet engine when its cranking. I will happily make the tradeoff between a noisy fan and accepting some thermal throttling any day of the week. When the M1 stops doing the job I need it to do then I'll upgrade to the M6 or whatever is current generation. I hope that machine will be fanless too.
I am coming from a 12.9 iPad Pro and 15 inch MacBook Pro 2017 setup - the M1 MacBook Air is a great machine. I plan on keeping this until they release the rumored premium MacBook Air (if it ever happens). Aside from the bezels and the old design, I love the keyboard, speed, battery life and the silence of the machine.
For the price, it is hard to find a better laptop.
For the price, it is hard to find a better laptop.
I thought I liked this machine a lot on day one, I am liking this machine better each and every day that much more , its quiet and cool to the touch!!
Liberating stuff for sure. Always hated fan noise and heat, I'd always edit in Proxy at a super low resolutions until I exported a video, and when gaming in bootcamp I'd set it to use only 25% of the CPU to keep down on noise and heat. Now I don't have to worry about any of that nor do I have to sacrifice power to keep the annoyances down
I used a Surface Pro 3 back in the day for quite some time. The fans were constant and loud on that thing. Even just the Windows 8 Start menu animations would get them revved up.
Replaced it with an iPad Pro and a MacBook Pro. iPad was obviously silent, but the MBP could get going to an audible volume when multitasking or driving an external display.
That eventually got replaced by a SurfaceBook 2. No fan for the CPU on the SB2, but the case did get pretty damn hot. And the batteries (there's two in the Surface Books) degraded in capacity pretty quickly. Tapping into the dedicated GPU, however (which did have a fan), and it would turn back into a noisy, hot laptop and drained the batteries in no time.
Now on the M1 MBA for a month, and I'm pretty well satisfied. Debated for a while between the Air and the M1 MBP which has a larger battery. After the heavy 15" MBP and heavier SurfaceBook 2, decided to go far the other direction and went with the lighter Air over the MBP. The Air still has great battery life and to be honest, I'm never far from an outlet if necessary.
Replaced it with an iPad Pro and a MacBook Pro. iPad was obviously silent, but the MBP could get going to an audible volume when multitasking or driving an external display.
That eventually got replaced by a SurfaceBook 2. No fan for the CPU on the SB2, but the case did get pretty damn hot. And the batteries (there's two in the Surface Books) degraded in capacity pretty quickly. Tapping into the dedicated GPU, however (which did have a fan), and it would turn back into a noisy, hot laptop and drained the batteries in no time.
Now on the M1 MBA for a month, and I'm pretty well satisfied. Debated for a while between the Air and the M1 MBP which has a larger battery. After the heavy 15" MBP and heavier SurfaceBook 2, decided to go far the other direction and went with the lighter Air over the MBP. The Air still has great battery life and to be honest, I'm never far from an outlet if necessary.