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This is how the 2017 MacBook Core m3, i5, i7 behave during sustained CPU load: 10+ runs of Cinebench
- Thread starter EugW
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Dunno, but for the 2016 model, the m3 did the best under load.
OTOH, under lighter usage, the m5 or m7 did the best.
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Face-Off-Apple-MacBook-12-Core-m3-Core-m5-and-Core-m7.172046.0.html
It should be noted though that the 2017 m3 is much faster than the 2016 m3.
The 2018 Amber Lake MacBook Air i5-8210Y (286) is only 4% faster than the 2017 Kaby Lake i7 MacBook (275) and 8% faster than the 2017 Kaby Lake m3 MacBook (265).
However, the MBA can maintain the speed over consecutive runs due to its fan.
However, the MBA can maintain the speed over consecutive runs due to its fan.
I’ve come to the conclusion that for the extra £328 (i get a discount) it’s far more worth it to go for the Touch Bar 13” MacBook Pro with 16GB Ram and 512GB SSD. I was all for the hype of the new Air, but seeing that the 13” MBP isn’t really that much heavier and battery life will only be about an hour so less, it will probably be better to opt for that for my personal usage.
Not really, it hasn’t been updated this year and I generally don’t mind getting the Touch Bar model. Especially if it’s going to last me 4-5 plus years like my 2011 lasted 7 years
The only decision now is if I should get the Apple Care+ or not.
Notebookcheck's 2018 MacBook Air review with the repeated Cinebench test:
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple-MacBook-Air-2018-i5-256-GB-Laptop-Review.357481.0.html
Interestingly, initially in Cinebench, performance dropped. But then the fan ramped up and Cinebench scores improved. It started out at 286, dropped to 267, and then by the fourth run plateaued at 276-279. It was essentially a flat performance curve after that.
Unfortunately, that's with the fan on high, and they think the noise of the Air is too loud that way.
Our Cinebench R15 Multi loop (macOS) is a good example. The fan starts spinning after about 15 seconds at 29 dB(A), but is only audible when you hold your ears against the fan exhaust. We measure 30 dB(A) after 2 minutes, 32 dB(A) after 4 minutes, 35 dB(A) after 6 minutes, 39 dB(A) after 8 minutes, and finally 41.8 dB(A) after 10 minutes.
Benchmarks are one thing, but you might also be confronted with the loud fan in more common situations. We experienced it during the installation of Fortnite, for example. The fan reached its maximum noise (41.8 dB(A)) after a few minuted during the download/installation of the game and stayed like this for the remaining 30 minutes or so. This will not happen every day, but we still think this is just too loud when you consider the low performance level of the laptop. You will also reach this noise levels when you play games.
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple-MacBook-Air-2018-i5-256-GB-Laptop-Review.357481.0.html
Interestingly, initially in Cinebench, performance dropped. But then the fan ramped up and Cinebench scores improved. It started out at 286, dropped to 267, and then by the fourth run plateaued at 276-279. It was essentially a flat performance curve after that.
Unfortunately, that's with the fan on high, and they think the noise of the Air is too loud that way.
Our Cinebench R15 Multi loop (macOS) is a good example. The fan starts spinning after about 15 seconds at 29 dB(A), but is only audible when you hold your ears against the fan exhaust. We measure 30 dB(A) after 2 minutes, 32 dB(A) after 4 minutes, 35 dB(A) after 6 minutes, 39 dB(A) after 8 minutes, and finally 41.8 dB(A) after 10 minutes.
Benchmarks are one thing, but you might also be confronted with the loud fan in more common situations. We experienced it during the installation of Fortnite, for example. The fan reached its maximum noise (41.8 dB(A)) after a few minuted during the download/installation of the game and stayed like this for the remaining 30 minutes or so. This will not happen every day, but we still think this is just too loud when you consider the low performance level of the laptop. You will also reach this noise levels when you play games.
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Sorry, I just saw this and it answered the question I asked you in messages. My apologies!
This is interesting though, as for web browsing, the i7 did better than i5, but for videos the i5 did better. This is contradicting and confusing my decisions! Want both i5 and i7 as cash is not a concern hahaha
This post is exactly one year old, but I thought I'd respond to it anyway. As the previous posts indicate, be careful what you wish for... The MacBook Air has active cooling and it does benefit from it, but then again, the reviewers find the fan obnoxious when near max.
I am very, very glad the MacBook is fanless. I'm happy to trade a little CPU speed for quiet. Plus, as spook suggests, a fan is just one more moving part that can break or cause problems. When fans get old they can get full of dust and less effective, and they can also break. The former happens to all fans, and the latter happened to my previous MacBook Pro. Luckily with the MacBook Pro, I could replace it myself. However, one of the fan screws stripped despite the fact I had the proper tools, so I couldn't initially remove the fan. I ended up having to drill out the screw, which can be a bit nerve-racking when working on a motherboard.
Interesting. AppleInsider should have run Cinebench a few more times then (the Air dropped to only 3% faster than the MacBook i5).
After comparing between my Macbook 2016 m3 vs 2017 m3, I can conclude that is all game of Intel, there is no magic between SkyLake and KabyLake, doing benchmark:
2016 m3 running at maximum 6W at 2.00 GHZ - Temp 86 Degree,
2017 m3 running at maximum 10W at 2.50 GHz - Temp 96 Degree ~ 2016 m5
So because it is all 14nm, the only thing Intel could do is just rebrand the Skylake threw in 4K encode/decode feature and unlock more clock speed (they could even do more clock with 2016 Skylake m3 then it can be totally on par with 2017 Kabylake m3). That's why it is dead-end with Macbook 12 line where Intel couldn't push just only more clock into the cores, clearly the temp gonna fry the Macbook. Apple have to wait the Intel 10nm or put their A SoC or just kill the Macbook 12.
2016 m3 running at maximum 6W at 2.00 GHZ - Temp 86 Degree,
2017 m3 running at maximum 10W at 2.50 GHz - Temp 96 Degree ~ 2016 m5
So because it is all 14nm, the only thing Intel could do is just rebrand the Skylake threw in 4K encode/decode feature and unlock more clock speed (they could even do more clock with 2016 Skylake m3 then it can be totally on par with 2017 Kabylake m3). That's why it is dead-end with Macbook 12 line where Intel couldn't push just only more clock into the cores, clearly the temp gonna fry the Macbook. Apple have to wait the Intel 10nm or put their A SoC or just kill the Macbook 12.
Geekbench 5 came out last week and initial scores are up. It's still early, but it's interesting to see that so far, the i7 isn't averaging too well. 2017 MacBooks highlighted in white.
https://browser.geekbench.com/macs/422
https://browser.geekbench.com/macs/422
Remember, there aren't that many scores yet for this new Geekbench 5 chart, so there is some variation. The 2017 MacBook i7 should do better than it does, and so should the 2018 MacBook Air i5.
That said, while the i5-8210Y in the 2018 MacBook Air should be somewhat faster than Core m3-7Y32 in the 2017 MacBook, it's only about 10-15% faster in the old Geekbench 4. In most usage that's barely even noticeable. In Cinebench, the MacBook Air's i5-8210Y only scores about 8% faster than the MacBook's m3-7Y32.
BTW, both score much, much lower than the A10X in my 2017 10.5" iPad Pro. This fanless A10X scores over 50% faster than those Macs.
Fast forward to mid-2020, and here are the scores:
As you can see, after getting more entries, the i7 does get the best score, but interestingly, the i5 doesn't fare as well. However, the performance difference is only a few percentage points, basically negligible.
I still think the i7 in some short bursty usage will be the best choice, but I suspect for a lot of usage people will be hard pressed to notice the performance difference. Really, the main differentiator here is the storage. And some tests in the past have suggested the m3 model is the most battery efficient (at least for the 2016 models).
However, it should also be noted that even the 2017 iPad Pros from are significantly faster. In contrast, the 2020 MacBook Air gets an average score of 2900+, so that's almost twice as fast as our 2017 MacBooks.
Here's hoping for something like an A12Z or A14 MacBook within the year. That should blow all of these 2017 MacBook models out of the water performance-wise. I don't think they'd put an A14X in the MacBook. The A14X or something similar may be reserved for the iPad Pro, MacBook Pro, and iMac.