I’d rather put the money into RAM and storage.Įdit: I ended up getting the 10-core GPU RAM, 24 GB, 1 TB storage model.This post was done in partnership with Wirecutter. If I end up buying one, though, I’ll prob just get the 8 core because I won’t be using the GPU cores much or enough to warrant it. Which means it can achieve the task and return to idle faster, thus saving battery and avoiding throttling (depending on task). Analogy: 10 people jogging would use less energy than 8 people running full speed.Īnd then when you need to max all 10 cores, that gives you 35% more power than the 8 cores in the M1. The benefit of 10 GPU cores, in everyday tasks, is that it can achieve the same performance of 8 GPU cores while using less power, according to an Apple exec who gave an interview, because it spreads the work among 10 instead of 8. But having more GPU cores isn’t going to be the difference between throttling and not throttling in everyday tasks, even creative media tasks. The Air has to throttle in order to not melt the chip. Of course the Air one-fan MacBook Pro isn’t meant for those tasks if time is a constraint. What MaxTech did was an unusual task for an Air (I think it was transcoding ProRes RAW), and it saturated all CPU and GPU cores for some time. Now I'm worried that the 10-Core M2 Air is the riskier purchase. But then I came across some recent speculation that the 10-Core M2 Air may throttle more than the 8-Core GPU M2 Air.

I was planning to get the 10-Core GPU M2 MacBook Air to future-proof myself, since I plan to use this laptop for the next 3+ years. This is the situation in which I find myself. You plan to buy at launch (and can't wait for future benchmark tests)ĭo you spend the $100 to upgrade to the 10-Core GPU M2 MacBook Air, or do you stick with the $100 cheaper upgraded 8-Core GPU M2 MacBook Air instead? You can't afford the extra $270 for the base model of the 14-inch M1 MacBook Pro (or prefer the design of the MacBook Air, etc.) You can afford the extra $100 for the 10-Core GPU M2 MacBook Air You want 16GB unified memory no matter what You want 512GB SSD storage no matter what With the $200 upgrade to 512GB SSD storage, the 8-Core GPU M2 MacBook Air is $100 cheaper than the 10-Core GPU M2 MacBook Air, which comes with 512GB SSD storage by default.

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