Performance and Power: The M4 in a Fanless Design
Apple’s M4 chip is well recognized, primarily due to its integration into products like the M4 MacBook Pro, M4 iMac, M4 Mac mini, and the M4 iPad Pro, albeit with some software variations affecting performance on the iPad Pro.
The M4 boasts an enhanced CPU structure with two additional efficiency cores. This brings the total core count to 10, comprising four performance cores and six efficiency cores. The graphics processing unit (GPU) retains 10 cores, consistent with both the M2 and M3 chips. However, the more affordable base models, starting at $999 and $1,199, are equipped with an 8-core GPU. It’s important to note that performance in our graphics tests may be slightly reduced for these versions.
A key distinction of the M4 in the MacBook Air is its lack of an active cooling fan. While Apple’s chips typically allow for full performance for brief periods under intense CPU or GPU use, the absence of a fan means that the chip may experience a drop in performance if it overheats during extended use.
For our review, we evaluated the 15-inch MacBook Air, and it’s worth mentioning that the smaller 13-inch model may experience more significant performance throttling due to its heatsink’s ability to manage heat dissipation.
In everyday usage scenarios, the M4 in the MacBook Air performs similarly to its counterparts with cooling fans for lighter tasks. This includes tests like Geekbench, single-threaded Cinebench, and many graphics benchmarks. However, during more demanding, prolonged tasks, such as video encoding via Handbrake, the performance begins to taper off compared to actively cooled versions of the chip. This trend is consistent across Apple’s earlier MacBook Air models; the workflows that truly tax the Air tend to be those that users generally wouldn’t use it for regularly.
When compared to previous models, the M4 offers a CPU performance boost of approximately 15 to 20 percent in single-core benchmarks and 20 to 30 percent in multi-core tests over the M3. The improvements in GPU performance vary by test but generally fall within a 10 to 20 percent increase. Apple is on a trajectory to eventually double the performance of the original M1 chip; currently, the M4 is between 50 and 70 percent faster than the M1, depending on the benchmark used. While the M1 remains sufficient for everyday tasks, especially with 16GB of RAM, the M4 certainly delivers a more responsive experience.