4 ms·

The Air and Pro boards are quite different, surprisingly. Search for some teardowns. (Don't know the reason)

• walrus01 6y ago
  former x86-64 hardware manufacturer view: the max TDP in watts of a CPU that can reasonably fit in something as thin as an air is a lot lower than a macbook pro or similar cooling solution (combined heatsink/heatpipe/blower fan). in the intel world there's a whole class of CPUs that absolutely max out at 8W, 12W or 15W, you can go somewhat higher in a fatter laptop.
  • Toutouxc 6y ago
    Both Pro and Air use the same M1 chip. Same performance, clocks, thermal output. They just handle the cooling differently.
    • walrus01 6y ago
      If I had to guess I'd say that the air probably thermal throttles or reaches a steady-state of lower performance at an earlier time than the Pro, if the pro has a larger cooling package on the same CPU... If you were to sit the two side by side on a desk and run a complicated pure-cpu x265 1.5 hour ffmpeg encode of a 4K video from raw y4m, the pro will probably race ahead after about 20 minutes, after the heat has soaked into the air.
      • Toutouxc 6y ago
        Yes, that's exactly how it works. I'm just not sure why you're saying this. It's obvious, given the fact that both machines use the same chip and different cooling. It has nothing to do with the shape and size of the board, which differs between the two machines significantly.