While these aren’t perfect machines, the most exciting thing about the M1’s debut is the awesome future potential of Apple silicon in the Mac. If it’s already this good in the beginning, what will desktop computing look like several years from now? Exciting times, indeed!
Chances are you, as the end-user, won’t even know that anything’s different when you power up these machines and begin using them. All you’ll know is that your computer instantly wakes from sleep, your favorite apps work, and that battery life seems an awful lot better than you remember it being on your last MacBook. And that, folks, is the biggest sign that Apple’s new machines are a success.
Like the A-series chips in its iOS devices, the M-series chips found inside machines like the 2020 MacBook Air are the brains of the operation; they all work together in such a way to provide peak performance. The M1 chip contains all of the integral components, such as the CPU, GPU, Neural Engine, and unified memory. It also contains other key elements like the storage controller, Image Signal Processor, Secure Enclave, and more.
8-core CPU
With that being said, users on the macOS Big Sur 11.1 beta are able to run some Windows apps using the CrossOver translator utility from CodeWeavers. Using CrossOver, I was able to install the Windows version of Steam on my Mac and download and play Rocket League at a respectable frame rate, but it wasn’t perfect. I plan on covering CrossOver support in a future post and video.
9to5Mac’s take
Like all recent MacBook Air models, the late 2020 version features just two USB-C ports on the left side of the machine. These ports are used for both I/O access for devices like SSDs, network adapters, docks, hubs, and displays. The ports are also there to facilitate charging via the included USB-C cable and power adapter.
The four four efficiency cores span cpu 0 – cpu 3, while the four performance cores span cpu 4 – cpu 7. Here’s an example of what these cores look like in action when under different types of loads:
Resting idle
Most cores are idle
Downloading Logic Pro from the Mac App Store
Efficiency cores are at work, while performance cores remain idle
Running Cinebench benchmark
All cores at work
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But here lies the real interesting test. How does Apple silicon perform against Intel silicon? I pit both 2020 MacBook Air models against each other, and it’s immediately clear that Apple silicon is far superior. In single-core performance, there are noticeable advantages, but in multi-core Apple’s 8-core CPU devastates the base model dual-core Intel i3 found in the MacBook Air.
Cinebench R23
It’s crazy to think that we have a MacBook Air with an 8-core CPU, but this is the chip that’s at the heart of the Apple M1. The 8-core CPU is broken up into a cluster of four performance cores (p-cluster) and four efficiency cores (e-cluster). Depending on the type of workload, each cluster can help drive the MacBook Air in the most efficient manner possible. For example, if your Mac is performing a background download, then the efficiency cores may handle the brunt of the work, but if you’re exporting a 4K video, then the performance cores will step up to bat. As you’ll learn, this design has a huge effect on battery life.
However, there is one subtle design change that you’ll notice when opening the lid. If you look closely, you’ll notice that three of the function keys on the top row of the keyboard have been altered along with an addition to the Fn key. Instead of a dedicated Launchpad key and a pair of keyboard backlight brightness keys, there are now dedicated Search, Dictation, and Do Not Disturb keyboard function keys. In addition to those changes, the Fn key in the bottom left-hand corner of the keyboard now doubles as an emoji key, allowing you to quickly invoke the emoji-popover when pressed by itself. I don’t think any of these updates are things that people have been clamoring for, but I find them all to be useful.
One of the most annoying things about my Intel-based MacBook Air, and really all Intel-based Apple laptops, is how long they can take to wake from sleep. With Apple silicon Macs, this is no longer a problem, because these machines feature instant-on capability, similar to what you find with an iPad or iPhone. This feature alone makes the 2020 MacBook Air nice for its pick-up-and-work capability.
Look ma, no fans
Most importantly for Mac users, these USB4 ports feature backward compatibility with Thunderbolt 3 and older flavors of USB as well. It means that all of your Thunderbolt 3 peripherals should work (unless you’re waiting for a driver update from a vendor like Universal Audio), and all of your older USB 3.x and USB 2.x devices should work as well. USB4 itself is capable of Thunderbolt 3-like 40Gbps performance with USB4 certified devices and features tunneling of DisplayPort and PCI Express. In the future, a device doesn’t necessarily need to be “Thunderbolt” compatible to experience similar benefits that we’ve all grown accustomed to with Thunderbolt 3.
Playing back and exporting 10-bit 4K HEVC videos on the M1 MacBooks is amazing. Not only is playback smooth, even when several effects are employed, but exporting is extremely fast. In some cases, transcoding and export was even faster than a 28-Core Mac Pro with dedicated W5700X graphics. That’s not to say that these first-generation Apple silicon Macs are the end-all-be-all for every Final Cut Pro user or scenario, but I was shocked at how well it performed in day-to-day editing on a base model MacBook Air without any sort of active cooling.
With these new Macs, Apple has placed RAM right on the M1 die, which means that a machine like the Mac mini, which used to feature user-replaceable RAM, no longer benefits from such a feature. While this is unfortunate for those that like to add their own RAM after purchase, the benefits of this unified architecture mean increased memory access speed, and direct access to the entire pool of memory from the CPU and GPU, Neural Engine, etc.
The Unigine Heaven and Valley benchmarks used to make my Intel Macs sound like they were about to blast off into low orbit, while I can barely even hear the fans on my M1 MacBook Pro or Mac mini when performing this same benchmark multiple times in a row. The point I’m trying to make is that both machines are usually dead silent to human ears, so don’t be pushed towards the MacBook Air solely because it lacks a fan.
A better display, but yet another subpar camera
One of the biggest changes with the M1-powered MacBooks is the outright lack of eGPU support. If you’re like me, and have used an eGPU for added graphics performance with past Macs, this may be a disappointment. However, considering how much better the graphics performance of these M1-MacBooks are, it may not be the big of a loss, especially when more powerful versions of Apple’s chips arrive in products like the 16-inch MacBook Pro.
Battery life
With that being said, if you’re running pro apps like Final Cut Pro, I absolutely recommend maxing out to 16GB of memory, because you will notice performance benefits when working with high-end video projects. Although 8GB is “fine” for many cases, I think it makes sense to upgrade to 16GB of RAM if you have the means. Even if you leave the storage at the entry-level 256GB designation, at least upgrade your RAM, since unlike storage, it can’t be bolted on later.
Fast SSD