Apple | Test: Throttling of the MacBook Air M2 – Comparison with MacBook Pro M2 and Air M1 | news | macbook

The M2 chip is produced using the same 5 nm process as the M1. In view of the higher clock rate and the two additional graphics cores, the chip almost inevitably produces more heat. The effects could already be observed in the MacBook Pro M2, because while the M1 hardly had to be throttled even under permanent full load, the cooling with the M2 has probably reached its limit. The fan has to turn on more often, the case heats up more, after a while under maximum load, there can be a performance loss of around 10 percent. This fueled concern about what might happen in the case of the passively cooled MacBook Air M2.

Cinebench loops show heat behavior
There are now a few Testingthat answer this question. The MacBook Air M1, MacBook Air M2 and MacBook Pro M2 had to go through the Cinebench R23 multi-core test for 30 minutes. While the MacBook Pro didn’t throttle in this scenario, the heat was more noticeable on the MacBook Air. However, there is very good news: the new MacBook Air obviously copes with the requirements much better than initially thought. As is well known, the M1 model loses up to 25 percent of its performance between the first and last test – the M2 version, on the other hand, significantly less.

Throttling: First vs. last test
After half an hour under full load, there were still 6757 points left out of the 7706 points in the test, which means there was a drop of not even 15 percent. This can be described as surprising, because the 25 percent minus of the 2020 MacBook Air M1 or even more was to be assumed.

MacBook Pro M2 significantly faster
There is one important point to note in the test: the MacBook Air performs worse than the actively cooled MacBook Pro in many situations in the first run. It doesn’t have to be throttled after a few minutes, but much faster. So if you compare the performance of the two notebooks, you still end up with a minus of around 25 percent. Despite everything, the MacBook Air M2 remains significantly faster than its direct predecessor. There is also another fact: In everyday use, there is usually no throttling at all, but the initial performance is consistently better – then the MacBook Air M2 and MacBook Pro M2 are on par again.