First benchmarks of the new Apple MacBook Air with an M3 chip show 20% improvement

05 March 2024
That is 20% over the M2-powered variant, it's more when compared against the original M1 model. The comparison with the air-cooled MacBook Pro is interesting too.

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Anonymous, 07 Mar 2024No. I need 32 at least, for VM, dev, docker ... 64 would ... moreThe MacBook Air M3 13 and 15 supports only up to 24gb of unified memory. I think you are confusing. The basic M series supports only up to 24 gb. And over 24gb, like 36gb, 48gb, 64gb, 96gb, 128gb, it is the M Pro.

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    • Anonymous
    • sgj
    • 07 Mar 2024

    JSK888, 07 Mar 2024***It starts at 8gb*** if you want more, than buy the... moreNo.
    I need 32 at least, for VM, dev, docker ... 64 would be great.

    Also price for 24, nope. I'd never ever forever pay that amount.

      • ?
      • Anonymous
      • sgj
      • 07 Mar 2024

      JSK888, 07 Mar 2024***It starts at 8gb*** if you want more, than buy the... moreNope.

      I need 32gb at least, 64 would be great.. For Dev, audio, VMs, dockers...

      And apple's price for 24gb is a slap at customer's face

        Anonymous, 05 Mar 20248gb ram its a joke!***It starts at 8gb*** if you want more, than buy the 24gb! What's the problem?

          can't get convinced to buy an ultrathin laptop. usually came with soldered SSD which would be stupid idea to begin with. would've been better to replace with M.2 SSD instead. i'm fine with soldered ram but not to soldered SSD!!

            To me, these current Apple Chips fall far from expectations.
            Countless times we saw TSMC advertise around +30% increase in performance/battery life, and that is without any improvements from software and/or architecture. Realistically we should've expected something closer to +40% improvement with the A17 and M3 chipsets. But what we got realistically is around a +5% improvement total. More performance at the expense of even more energy.

            Now I don't know if that is because TSMC lied, or their yields are terrible, or Apple is incompetent, or Apple purposely gimped their own product. It could even be multiple factors.

            All I know is that Apple needs to get back to its expected roadmap, because MediaTek and Qualcomm are right on their heels. Whilst Intel is far far behind, AMD can possibly catch-up to Apple later rather than sooner. Or even surpass them in the distant future (hybrid chipset).

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              • Anonymous
              • 70d
              • 06 Mar 2024

              mavwpochka, 06 Mar 2024exceed 8gb on air... how? why? what?LOL. Do you have a PC?

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                • Anonymous
                • 8uN
                • 06 Mar 2024

                $1,300 for 15" 8/256 is absolutely laughable. I can easily get any Windows laptop with 16GB RAM and 512GB storage and get similar performance. You can miss me with long battery life as I care more about having upgradeable RAM and storage.

                  Vl, 05 Mar 2024Yes. A nasty joke. There are tests how much slower the l... moreexceed 8gb on air... how? why? what?

                    Anonymous, 06 Mar 2024You clearly have no clue at all. Once you ramp up the perfo... moreWhich models did you compare?

                      Anonymous, 06 Mar 2024Arm chips are developed keeping planned obsolescence in min... moreHow exactly?

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                        • Anonymous
                        • m62
                        • 06 Mar 2024

                        om, 05 Mar 2024Wait until arm laptops with workstations performance arrive... moreYou clearly have no clue at all. Once you ramp up the performance, ARMs efficiency gains dwindle.

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                          • Anonymous
                          • m62
                          • 06 Mar 2024

                          I am sure just like the other M3 Macbooks the temps will be insane under load. After all, the bigger Macbook model they released didn't really show improved temps either, despite having more space for cooling

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                            • Anonymous
                            • rJ5
                            • 06 Mar 2024

                            Arm chips are developed keeping planned obsolescence in mind. They are not developed to survive 8+ yrs.

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                              • Anonymous
                              • th1
                              • 06 Mar 2024

                              Anonymous, 06 Mar 2024I love Apple's price for their ram and SSD really ! Th... moreDon't forget both are "SOLDERED" so if it fails mainly SSD, your data is lost & you will have to pay premium for a 1% chance of recovering data or just buy a new macbook.

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                                • Anonymous
                                • sgj
                                • 06 Mar 2024

                                Anonymous, 05 Mar 20248gb ram its a joke!I love Apple's price for their ram and SSD really ! Thanks apple, for letting me having a good reason to never buy your sh'ty and walled garden OS.

                                  • ?
                                  • Anonymous
                                  • sgj
                                  • 06 Mar 2024

                                  pl2rts, 05 Mar 2024Where are all the Intel and AMD chip news in this site ? Ap... moreIntel is sleeping again, will probably wake up too late in ten years.

                                  And AMD is adding it's money in servers and Gpu and does not even know we exist.

                                  So yeah in the end, easy for apple I'd say ... Sadly, I don't want aolle, I never did and will probably never ( the more older I am the more stubborn ...)

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                                    • Anonymous
                                    • sgj
                                    • 06 Mar 2024

                                    Anonymous, 05 Mar 2024Agreed. Battery tech is far behind all other tech. Minor pe... moreIdk. I read a ton for years about how good air are awesome crazy amazing about battery, and I want to believe in that.

                                    Then, I attend each week in some dev meetings. My zenbook is almost never plugged in, whereas all macs are plugged in.

                                    Take it for what it is...

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                                      • Anonymous
                                      • th1
                                      • 06 Mar 2024

                                      om, 05 Mar 2024Wait until arm laptops with workstations performance arrive... moreold? They have added many instruction sets over the years like avx, sse5/6, etc. & will always be miles powerful than crapple Desktopwise, maybe on mobile laptops they aren't as efficient but on Desktop PC unhindered by compactness & batteries crapples not even close while being less than half the cost. You can get AMD High End workstations with 64-100+ cores + whatever powerful gpu to pair it, 100+gb ram multiple ssds/hdds combo, etc. with unhindered locked down functionality. While having some extra change from whatever most expensive crapple offers.

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                                        • Anonymous
                                        • th1
                                        • 06 Mar 2024

                                        Vl, 05 Mar 2024Yes. A nasty joke. There are tests how much slower the l... moreThats why apple solder them as planned obscelence so the device wont last 5 yrs before ssd fail from constant read & write. Not to mention the whole device will be trash as the boot firmware is also on it rather have it separated.