TECH NEWS – Some things the new MacBook Air does better, and some things it does worse…

Two videos from the Max Tech YouTube channel are embedded below. The M2 MacBook Air had a single NAND flash chip, which had a negative impact on SSD speed. Apple has improved this in the 13-inch and 15-inch M3 MacBook Air, as there are two NAND flash chips, and as a result, the laptop’s SSD has higher read and write speeds. According to the Blackmagic Disk Speed Test, the write speed was 2108 MB/s (33% faster than the previous generation) and the read speed was 2880 MB/s (82% faster!). These results were achieved with the 256GB model, so there is no need to invest in the 512GB version. It should be added that 256 gigabytes is very little these days, because with Windows 10/11 you can add Death Stranding and have less than 100 GB of space left.

But both the 13-inch and 15-inch models don’t have a fan. So the MacBook Air M3 is quiet, but the MacBook Pro has a fan, and even though it has the same chip, it can maintain its performance longer… because it has a better cooling system. The 15-inch model is tested in the second video below (Geekbench 6 single and multi-core, Metal), and the 3DMark Wilf Life Extreme stress test shows that the cooling system is simply weak.

The processor heats up to 114 degrees and the GPU climbs to 102.9 degrees. This makes the MacBook Air 33% slower than the MacBook Pro, even though both machines have the same 8-core CPU and 10-core GPU. The other problem is the aluminum chassis, which heats up to 45-46 degrees Celsius. This can be very uncomfortable! The solution is to add heat-dissipating pads to the heatsink, so it can maintain performance at temperatures similar to the M2 MacBook Air for longer.

So if you can’t take the laptop apart, don’t render on it!

Source: WCCFTech, WCCFTech