Will Heat Eventually Shorten the Lifespan of MacBook Air m1?

[rocknblogger]

I think we can all agree that heat is the enemy of electronics of most any kind. That being said I’m very close to ordering a maxed out MacBook Air m1 but my fear is that since it doesnt have active cooling it may not last as long as the MacBook Pro m1.

Currently I’m rocking the mid 2013 MacBook Pro with retina screen. It’s been a great computer And I only started feeling it’s age in the last year to year and a half.

I’ll be using the Air for 15-45 minute YouTube videos, I’m also a photographer so Lightroom, Photoshop and some other photo specific tools and apps. Oh and recording and producing podcasts.

So with all the above information do you guys think I can stretch the Air to 6 or 7 years the way I did my 2013 rMBP? Or would I be better served getting the Pro m1 and not look back? It’s the heat thing that worries me most.

Thanks in advance,
R

 

[mactinkerlover]

I think we can all agree that heat is the enemy of electronics of most any kind. That being said I’m very close to ordering a maxed out MacBook Air m1 but my fear is that since it doesnt have active cooling it may not last as long as the MacBook Pro m1.

Currently I’m rocking the mid 2013 MacBook Pro with retina screen. It’s been a great computer And I only started feeling it’s age in the last year to year and a half.

I’ll be using the Air for 15-45 minute YouTube videos, I’m also a photographer so Lightroom, Photoshop and some other photo specific tools and apps. Oh and recording and producing podcasts.

So with all the above information do you guys think I can stretch the Air to 6 or 7 years the way I did my 2013 rMBP? Or would I be better served getting the Pro m1 and not look back? It’s the heat thing that worries me most.

Thanks in advance,
R

TBH, I think it will probably be the same if not better than how the older macbooks were. I mean we got people who have pushed their iPhone 5s really hard for years and they still work to this day. I mention the iphone 5s because it's also a passively cooled apple silicon device. I think it will be fine, but if you want to be on the extra safe side, then you can try to find a way to cool it.

 

[chabig]

I wouldn't worry about this at all, based on what we've seen over the past month on YouTube and from reviews.

 

[James_C]

I would not worry about heat, as Apple Silicon does not tend to get as hot as the Intel Chips they replace, and the system will throttle down if it gets to warm. In fact as far as longevity of the M1 MBA is concerned, the lack of fans actually helps reduce the impact of the the other enemy of electronics longevity - dust which is normally sucked in by the fans.

Look at the iPads - they last for many years with no fans.

 

[Argon_]

Under long term sustained loads, the Air will throttle to maintain a ~70C hottest core, unlike the Intel one, which would peg the temps at 100C the entire time.

Source: LTT ASi review.

 

[leman]

I think we can all agree that heat is the enemy of electronics of most any kind.

I hope we can all agree that this phrase is universally misinterpreted and overused. Modern integrated circuits are resigned to run at very high temperatures for years and years. Your machine will break down of independent reasons long before its electronics deteriorates because if heat.

 

[Populus]

I have an issue I have no explanation for. When running a game like Prison Architect, when it is on the main screen (on screen) temperatiures are moderate, because the GPU is working and it is above the usual 30 degrees. However, when I change to another space (off-screen) the temperatures ramp up drastically, showing more than 90 degrees. Do you have any explanation for that? This doesn’t happen with all apps, but with some games (Prison Architect, Fortnite...), they make the SoC much hotter when they aren’t on screen.

 

[/V\acpower]

I think we can all agree that heat is the enemy of electronics of most any kind. That being said I’m very close to ordering a maxed out MacBook Air m1 but my fear is that since it doesnt have active cooling it may not last as long as the MacBook Pro m1.

Currently I’m rocking the mid 2013 MacBook Pro with retina screen. It’s been a great computer And I only started feeling it’s age in the last year to year and a half.

I’ll be using the Air for 15-45 minute YouTube videos, I’m also a photographer so Lightroom, Photoshop and some other photo specific tools and apps. Oh and recording and producing podcasts.

So with all the above information do you guys think I can stretch the Air to 6 or 7 years the way I did my 2013 rMBP? Or would I be better served getting the Pro m1 and not look back? It’s the heat thing that worries me most.

Thanks in advance,
R

The MacBook Air does have an active cooling system : throttling. The MBA will never operate above a safe temperature for the component.

If you run a heavy load for a while and notice the MBA getting slow, I understand that intuitively as human we interpret that as "the chip is so warm that it is unable to function properly for a while", like a human who is out of breath for running for too long, feel pain in his legs.

However when you stop and think about it, the slowness you may perceive is not due to heat damaging the chip, it's due to the chip getting slow BEFORE it get damaged through heat.

The MBA not having a fan will not make the MBA operate at unsafe temps. It only mean it use another strategy to the MBP to keep temperature at a safe level.

Also, the biggest risk of failure on a computer is the moving parts : keyboard and fan. The MBP is more likely to have problems because it rely on a moving fan.

 

[Apple_Robert]

As a M1 MBA owner, I am not concerned. Apple has taken steps to make sure the M1 doesn't overheat. The lifespan should be many years use.

 

[DanielDD]

I would say the MacBook Pro is slightly worse for longevity. The MacBook air does not have a fan. The fans are now the only rotating component, so they have a higher likelihood of being the first parts of the system to fail. Also, without a fan, there’s no air inflow. And that means dust and other particles do not get into the machine.

 

[James_C]

I have an issue I have no explanation for. When running a game like Prison Architect, when it is on the main screen (on screen) temperatiures are moderate, because the GPU is working and it is above the usual 30 degrees. However, when I change to another space (off-screen) the temperatures ramp up drastically, showing more than 90 degrees. Do you have any explanation for that? This doesn’t happen with all apps, but with some games (Prison Architect, Fortnite...), they make the SoC much hotter when they aren’t on screen.

The two games that you posted screenshots for are running under Rosetta so the processor has a to do a lot more work, so that would explain the higher temps, I can only presume that a game running in the background is still consuming a lot of CPU and the foreground App will have a lot of dedicated CPU as it is running in the foreground.

 

[Argon_]

The MBA also has a replaceable battery, so you could DIY it. The MBP doesn't and Apple just replaces the whole keyboard deck.

 

[Apple_Robert]

The MBA also has a replaceable battery, so you could DIY it. The MBP doesn't and Apple just replaces the whole keyboard deck.

I did not know about the battery being replaceable on the MBA. I will have to check that out.

 

[russell_314]

Heat isn’t going to kill it. Everyone stresses so much about stuff like this but just enjoy your new computer. If it dies in five years that means you got a good five years

 

[Apple_Robert]

Heat isn’t going to kill it. Everyone stresses so much about stuff like this but just enjoy your new computer. If it dies in five years that means you got a good five years

But, but, resale value

I just had to say it. lol. It kills me when my fellow forum members get tunnel vision with resale.

 

[russell_314]

But, but, resale value

I just had to say it. lol. It kills me when my fellow forum members get tunnel vision with resale.

Don’t get me wrong. I baby my MacBooks. It stays in a case and handled carefully. I had one in let’s just say a very hostile environment for a year and it was like new after.

 

[rocknblogger]

The MBA also has a replaceable battery, so you could DIY it. The MBP doesn't and Apple just replaces the whole keyboard deck.

Are you 100% sure about this? Because that alone gives the Air a leg up in my book.

 

[rocknblogger]

Thank you all to all the thoughtful replies you guys gave. So at this point the differences are really minimal. Once you upgrade storage past 512GB you get the exact same processor with 8 core CPU and 8 core GPU. The only real difference is 400nits on the Air vs 500nits on the Pro. Better speakers which really doesn’t make a difference since I use Audioengine speakers and “Studio“ microphones which again doesn’t mean that much to me. Oh yeah the touch bar which I really don’t care about.

looks like I’m talking myself into the Air the more a type and think of it.

Thanks again for all your input😉
R

 

[Populus]

Are you 100% sure about this? Because that alone gives the Air a leg up in my book.

To be honest, I will try to replace the battery of my Apple devices with official batteries. Those are always the best, providing not only the best capacities, but the best longevity as well. Third party batteries... usually end up losing a lot of capacity in a small period of time, AFAIK. I won’t risk my devices with third party batteries.

 

[Populus]

Thank you all to all the thoughtful replies you guys gave. So at this point the differences are really minimal. Once you upgrade storage past 512GB you get the exact same processor with 8 core CPU and 8 core GPU. The only real difference is 400nits on the Air vs 500nits on the Pro. Better speakers which really doesn’t make a difference since I use Audioengine speakers and “Studio“ microphones which again doesn’t mean that much to me. Oh yeah the touch bar which I really don’t care about.

looks like I’m talking myself into the Air the more a type and think of it.

Thanks again for all your input😉
R

I have the M1 MBA, and I couldn’t be happier. But in my case the absence of TouchBar was key.

 

[Argon_]

Are you 100% sure about this? Because that alone gives the Air a leg up in my book.

Yes. The Air's battery is retained with pull tab tape; pretty much command strips. The Pro's is glued in.

 

[rocknblogger]

I just realized the time usage is different too, 20 hours on the pro and 18 hours on the air. But I wonder how big of difference it is in real day to day use. 2 hours is a bit of a difference. Oy vay 😂

 

[consumeritis]

I have an issue I have no explanation for. When running a game like Prison Architect, when it is on the main screen (on screen) temperatiures are moderate, because the GPU is working and it is above the usual 30 degrees. However, when I change to another space (off-screen) the temperatures ramp up drastically, showing more than 90 degrees. Do you have any explanation for that? This doesn’t happen with all apps, but with some games (Prison Architect, Fortnite...), they make the SoC much hotter when they aren’t on screen.

My guess is this.

Games tend to have an update loop which prepares a frame, draws it, and then swaps buffers to present the new frame to the screen.

When the game is on screen, and vsync is on, the game's update rate is throttled by the framerate of the display. At the point in the update loop where buffers are swapped, the game is paused briefly until the next vsync. This period of time spent waiting reduces load on the CPU and gives it time to cool down.

When the game is on an offscreen space, the buffer swap doesn't actually do anything, the GPU commands are just discarded. With no real vsync on the display, there's no waiting period, so the CPU ramps up to the highest framerate and the core running the game's main thread ends up at 100%.

That's my guess based on my experience implementing a game loop, anyway. It's a case of the game's code needing to know it's in an off-screen space and knowing to throttle its frame rate in a way that doesn't rely directly on the buffer swap.

I'd report it as a bug to the game devs, if you can.

 

[Populus]

That’s an interesting explanation @consumeritis

Sadly, I doubt Epic is interested in optimizing Fortnite for mac at this point, and Prison Architect is an old title, but yeah, I can report it.

I have the feeling that this new M1 machines are very capable computers for executing many indie and less demanding games, but devs aren’t still interested in optimizing them for Metal 2 and this new SoCs, or even just macOS

 

[Populus]

I just realized the time usage is different too, 20 hours on the pro and 18 hours on the air. But I wonder how big of difference it is in real day to day use. 2 hours is a bit of a difference. Oy vay 😂

Maybe that 2h difference will vanish if you use the MacBook Pro with the screen on brighter levels. Just a thought.