Apple MacBook Air 2020 M1 Entry Review: Apple M1 CPU humbles Intel and AMD

[Redaktion]

The new entry into Apple's notebook world comes with its new in-house M1 ARM processor in the established case. Find out in our extensive review how the new entry-level release turns out and whether Apple also has to struggle with software compatibility like the Windows-on-ARM devices.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple-MacBook-Air-2020-M1-Entry-Review-Apple-M1-CPU-humbles-Intel-and-AMD.508057.0.html

[JayN]

"At this point, external Thunderbolt accessories cannot be used reliably yet."

So, does Dell with TGL have a reliable TB4?

[fishingbait64]

Sigh. Yet another site that makes apples and oranges comparisons: the 7 or 8 core M1 against the 2 cores for the Intel Core i3 or 4 cores for the Intel Core i5 and i7.

Here's an idea: instead of rigging things for Apple, why not make a relevant comparison? Like the Lenovo Legion 5. That one has a 10th gen Intel Core i7 with 6 cores instead of 4. Sure, it costs $100 more than the entry level MacBook Air, but you get a 15' screen, a 512 GB SSD and a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti GPU. Or the Asus ROG Strix, which has the same CPU and SSD, though a lesser NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Ti graphics card for $999.

All the sites are only comparing the MacBooks and Mac Mini to the lesser core configurations in the "thin and light" or "small form factor" Windows competitors. No one is comparing them to the 6 or 8 core i7 and i9 chips in gaming PCs, workstations and ultrabooks.

Don't get me wrong: I am impressed with Apple's accomplishments. They are the culmination of a long process that began with the iMac way back in 1998 and went on to the iPod, iPod Touch/iPhone, iPad, iPad Pro/Apple TV and circled back to the Macs using iPad Pro CPUs. And I am not saying that the Intel or AMD performance CPUs with 6-8 cores are better or even equivalent. I just want SOMEONE to make the comparison. People buy the Dell XPS 13 because it is thin and light, not because they want to run machine learning datasets on it. So let's find out if the M1 can hold its own against x86 CPUs that have the same number of cores.

[anon2468]

Here's an idea: instead of rigging things for Apple, why not make a relevant comparison? Like the Lenovo Legion 5. That one has a 10th gen Intel Core i7 with 6 cores instead of 4. Sure, it costs $100 more than the entry level MacBook Air, but you get a 15' screen, a 512 GB SSD and a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti GPU. Or the Asus ROG Strix, which has the same CPU and SSD, though a lesser NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Ti graphics card for $999.

Sites compare the MacBook Air to 2-4 core Intel machines because Intel doesn't make a processor that has a ~10W power envelope with 6 cores, and neither of the machines you mention is a thin-and-light ultrabook. They are essentially different classes of products; if you wanted a 15" laptop with a dGPU, you wouldn't be considering a MacBook Air as an alternative.

The core count is an implementation detail; the important thing is how much performance a manufacturer can achieve within a power/weight/price bracket.

[Anhar]

Sigh. Yet another site that makes apples and oranges comparisons: the 7 or 8 core M1 against the 2 cores for the Intel Core i3 or 4 cores for the Intel Core i5 and i7.

Here's an idea: instead of rigging things for Apple, why not make a relevant comparison? Like the Lenovo Legion 5. That one has a 10th gen Intel Core i7 with 6 cores instead of 4. Sure, it costs $100 more than the entry level MacBook Air, but you get a 15' screen, a 512 GB SSD and a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti GPU. Or the Asus ROG Strix, which has the same CPU and SSD, though a lesser NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Ti graphics card for $999.

All the sites are only comparing the MacBooks and Mac Mini to the lesser core configurations in the "thin and light" or "small form factor" Windows competitors. No one is comparing them to the 6 or 8 core i7 and i9 chips in gaming PCs, workstations and ultrabooks.

Don't get me wrong: I am impressed with Apple's accomplishments. They are the culmination of a long process that began with the iMac way back in 1998 and went on to the iPod, iPod Touch/iPhone, iPad, iPad Pro/Apple TV and circled back to the Macs using iPad Pro CPUs. And I am not saying that the Intel or AMD performance CPUs with 6-8 cores are better or even equivalent. I just want SOMEONE to make the comparison. People buy the Dell XPS 13 because it is thin and light, not because they want to run machine learning datasets on it. So let's find out if the M1 can hold its own against x86 CPUs that have the same number of cores.

Sigh. You don't understand how comparison works.

1. Previous base model MBA has 2 Core i3 processor, and also have same price as current M1 MacBook. For 4 Core i5 processor you need to spend more

2. Lenovo Legion 5 is a gaming laptop which have dedicated GPU and heavy power brick, which doesn't fit in ultrabook class like MBA.

[ariliquin]

This is an amazing result for Apple and reflects the difference between next generation 5nm processors and current 10nm offerings from Intel, also Apple's excellent optimisation helps. As Apple is in front of the que for TSMC's roll out expect to see a lot more impressive results in the future from Apple as they move to 5nm gen 2 then 3nm in 2 years. AMD is the only one that will be able to compete on performance in the future.

[Mmmm]

@Anhar
"Sigh. You don't understand how comparison works.

1. Previous base model MBA has 2 Core i3 processor, and also have same price as current M1 MacBook. For 4 Core i5 processor you need to spend more"

Anhar, that is exactly why you do nit understand how comparison works   :D

[themacmeister]

 :-[

particularly exiting

SPELL CHECK YOUR ARTICLES!!!

[Dice]

There are always so many spelling and grammar mistakes in these articles. I kinda got used to it. Since they probably have a real job besides running this site they probably don't have the time to check and fix this kind of stuff.

[Gigaboly]

Disappointed results as expected, this macbook is nowhere near to any windows laptop for the same price, of course it beats all netbooks cost less...if it break after 1 year you can throw it to the garbage...

[Todor032]

Disappointed results as expected, this macbook is nowhere near to any windows laptop for the same price, of course it beats all netbooks cost less...if it break after 1 year you can throw it to the garbage...

So what's the better-performing, passively-cooled Windows alternative I should have bought?

Sigh. Yet another site that makes apples and oranges comparisons: the 7 or 8 core M1 against the 2 cores for the Intel Core i3 or 4 cores for the Intel Core i5 and i7.

As a consumer, I couldn't care less about the number of cores my device has. What matters is how fast my stuff runs, and how much power it consumes while doing so. Comparing a passively-cooled ultrabook to a 3kg gaming chungus makes exactly zero sense, as they fall in different market segments.

You guys should read about the staggering amount of technical innovation and architectural elegance that M1 brings to the table. I mean, it beats the current Intel/AMD offerings that use twice the power, while running an emulator! And what you manage to extract from that is "Let's compare it to CPU+GPU combos that use 15 times more power! Checkmate, Apple!" Are you kidding me?

[Joi]

This passively cooled thing can run all those games and under emulation? I didn't think it could run DXMD with a green box for frame rate at medium. I couldn't do that with my desktop and a dedicated older video card. That's crazy. Still, I am not convinced by the Apple design choices.

[eulslix]

I agree with the previous poster, that you can't compare notebooks of different target segments with each other. That was never the point, and would be to the respective notebooks disadvantage, since they would be disappointing in all the relevant metrics for the target segment (weight, battery life, compactness, loudness, heat development, monitor quality, ...).

As always, an excellent test, so thanks for that. Finally this test draws a more realistic picture of the M1, and while the results under emulation are indeed impressive, I don't think they are as impressive as people try to make them. The M1 eats up 25-30W, so basically half of its battery, under heavy load. That's irrelevant for the typical tasks of a sub notebook, however, if we translate those numbers to the 16" form factor and the rumoured double amount of CPU/GPU cores, we'll end up with more or less the same performance for graphically intensive tasks like CAD/game development as its predecessor, while having marginally more battery life (at roughly 50W that should translate to 2 hours battery life). I personally never had a problem with the battery life with light tasks on my 16" notebook, however, doing anything more demanding on the go was pretty much impossible, since the device would run out of power after 1-2 hours. This doesn't seem to change much with the upcoming devices, neither does the in-house GPU seem to offer significant advantages over the AMD counterparts, so I see not much reason why anyone would upgrade his/her perfectly capable 16" MBP for pretty much the same thing, but at the expense of an eco system lock in...

[Klaus Hinum]

... however, if we translate those numbers to the 16" form factor and the rumoured double amount of CPU/GPU cores, we'll end up with more or less the same performance for graphically intensive tasks like CAD/game development as its predecessor, while having marginally more battery life (at roughly 50W that should translate to 2 hours battery life).

Thanks to the 4 efficiency cores the M1X (?) has in theory comparable Wifi power consumption numbers, as it can turn off the performance cluster for low power work loads (or only power it shortly). Of course it also depends on how much power the bigger GPU needs for showing the desktop. E.g. adding another display output and more cache and RAM needs power.

Regarding spell checking: We can of course double spell check articles, but then they will go online at a later date and we don't have the money to produce that many articles (or at that depth). So our choice is clear. However, helping us out with errors is always welcome - the tone could be a bit nicer ;)

[M.a]

Here's an idea: instead of rigging things for Apple, why not make a relevant comparison?

Relevant comparisons would be laptops in the same class, which are "premium" thin and light sub-notebooks. Dell XPS 13" for example.

I mean, you can compare everything with everything, but if you are reviewing a thin and light business/multimedia laptop, it makes sense to compare it to other similar machines and not to gaming laptops that fulfill a very different niche and implement different tradeoffs.