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This isn't that much better than the fully decked out quad core 2020 Air. The biggest difference is the ability to have 32GB of RAM. Both are 10nm Ice Lake proc

by api 7y ago

This isn't that much better than the fully decked out quad core 2020 Air. The biggest difference is the ability to have 32GB of RAM. Both are 10nm Ice Lake processors, which offer much better battery life (can attest to this as I have a 2020 Air) and have hardware mitigations for at least some of the security bugs that have plagued Intel. The latter gives you some of your syscall performance back, which can be noticeable on I/O heavy apps. I personally prefer the 2020 Air as it also has physical function keys (but still has Touch ID). If I wanted to go Pro I'd probably go for the 16 inch with eight cores.

m_st 7y ago
Note that performance could be an issue with the Air, as it will throttle the CPU to prevent too much head. The MBP has much more thermal leg room. That said, the Air indeed is a great machine and I too prefer the function keys to Touch ID.
- ulfw 7y ago
  But if you’re after performance you’d go with the 16”. With no dedicated GPU and still quad core, the 13” MBP is a bit in no mans land in terms of Air vs 16” Performance.
therealmarv 7y ago
I think your assumption is wrong. The air lacks good cooling and many reviews say that the air will thermal throttle under sustained heavy load. The 13" Pro will probably (reviews and ifixit will tell) cool better on sustained load with a better Ghz clockspeed than the Air.
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dangus 7y ago
The Air has Y processors while the Pro has U. Performance will be significantly better on the Pro. The downside to the 16-inch is that it’s heavier, and expensive. And most people don’t need 8 cores. The Touch Bar is down to personal preference. I find it’s better for granular sound and brightness adjustments, and the keyboard suggestions for emojis come in handy (laugh it up, call it an emoji bar, but it’s great for someone with an iPhone that writes messages on the computer). People who customize it with BetterTouchTool can get a lot out of it. In other words, I don’t consider it enough of a downside to choose a slower computer just to avoid it. Choose the Air if you don’t need the extra performance and you’d like to save a couple hundred bucks. Applications that have serious need of the F keys are few and far between, usually games that are better played elsewhere anyway. Macintosh systems in the early 90’s never even had F keys, they’re very much a DOS-ism.
jonplackett 7y ago
Are these actually 10nm? I keep presuming 10th gen chips are 10nm and then realising they’re actually 14++
- api 7y ago
  I'd be surprised if mine is not, since the 2020 Air runs significantly cooler than the 2019 Air in spite of having twice the cores and being faster. It being 10nm is the best explanation for this. This might also explain the lack of an eight physical core option for this 13" pro. There may be no octacore 10nm desktop/laptop chips yet. It would make sense that Intel would prioritize lower power chips like the one used in the Air as these benefit most from the new process node.
  - jonplackett 7y ago
    These are higher performance chips in the MacBook Pro though. I don’t think the 16 inch has 10nm.

by api 7y ago

m_st 7y ago

Note that performance could be an issue with the Air, as it will throttle the CPU to prevent too much head. The MBP has much more thermal leg room. That said, the Air indeed is a great machine and I too prefer the function keys to Touch ID.

ulfw 7y ago
But if you’re after performance you’d go with the 16”. With no dedicated GPU and still quad core, the 13” MBP is a bit in no mans land in terms of Air vs 16” Performance.

therealmarv 7y ago

I think your assumption is wrong. The air lacks good cooling and many reviews say that the air will thermal throttle under sustained heavy load. The 13" Pro will probably (reviews and ifixit will tell) cool better on sustained load with a better Ghz clockspeed than the Air.

deleted 7y ago

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dangus 7y ago

The Air has Y processors while the Pro has U. Performance will be significantly better on the Pro. The downside to the 16-inch is that it’s heavier, and expensive. And most people don’t need 8 cores. The Touch Bar is down to personal preference. I find it’s better for granular sound and brightness adjustments, and the keyboard suggestions for emojis come in handy (laugh it up, call it an emoji bar, but it’s great for someone with an iPhone that writes messages on the computer). People who customize it with BetterTouchTool can get a lot out of it. In other words, I don’t consider it enough of a downside to choose a slower computer just to avoid it. Choose the Air if you don’t need the extra performance and you’d like to save a couple hundred bucks. Applications that have serious need of the F keys are few and far between, usually games that are better played elsewhere anyway. Macintosh systems in the early 90’s never even had F keys, they’re very much a DOS-ism.

jonplackett 7y ago

Are these actually 10nm? I keep presuming 10th gen chips are 10nm and then realising they’re actually 14++

api 7y ago
I'd be surprised if mine is not, since the 2020 Air runs significantly cooler than the 2019 Air in spite of having twice the cores and being faster. It being 10nm is the best explanation for this. This might also explain the lack of an eight physical core option for this 13" pro. There may be no octacore 10nm desktop/laptop chips yet. It would make sense that Intel would prioritize lower power chips like the one used in the Air as these benefit most from the new process node.
- jonplackett 7y ago
  These are higher performance chips in the MacBook Pro though. I don’t think the 16 inch has 10nm.