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New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

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Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#41

Post by bombcar »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #31
scrlk wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

M1/M2 MBAs are limited to one external display. The M3 MacBook Air relaxes this restriction by allowing two external displays.

... When the clamshell is closed. With an open one it is still just one external display.

Which basically means the others could do it (all M1 processors can handle two displays, which is either two for the Mac mini or internal + external for the laptops).

The addition is the ability to have two external when closed; likely this could have mainly been done in software if they cared.

(You can get more than one external on a laptop with the screen open if you go up to the Max or Pro or whatever.)

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#42

Post by eutropia »

addandsubtract wrote: post #23
marban wrote: post #12

"MacBook Air can also run optimized AI models, including large language models (LLMs) and diffusion models for image generation locally with great performance."

Worthless PR. Further down, another selling point is "MacBook Air supports cloud-based solutions, enabling users to run powerful productivity and creative apps that tap into the power of AI, such as Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365, Canva, and Adobe Firefly." Wow. Until they support CUDA or more ML/AI implementations on their chips, this is just marketing speak.

I run Mixtral 8x-7B on my M1 max mpb with llamafile, and Stable Diffusion - the backend for both is running via Metal implementations for Pytorch et al...

But "supports cloud-based solutions" is a pretty lame way to sell it.

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#43

Post by microtonal »

karmakaze wrote: post #18

Looking at this list comparing the M3 with M1 doesn't motivate me to want the M3. It seems most gains are GPU related. The M2 was underwhelming, and it seems the M3 isn't much better than the M2 so comparing against M1. > M3 takes MacBook Air performance even further: > Game titles like No Man’s Sky run up to 60 percent faster than the 13-inch MacBook Air with the M1 chip. > Enhancing an image with AI using Photomato…

After the big bump with the M1, we are back to the 10-20% generational improvements of old days. The deltas between generations are not impressive, but they do add up after a few years.

I am kind of interested in the M3 Air. I generally prefer MacBook Air over MacBook Pro, since it's lighter and more compact than the Pro, but I am currently still using a MacBook Pro with M1 Pro due to the limitations of the earlier Airs. It seems that these limitations are getting lifted slowly, with the M2 supporting up to 24GB RAM and the M3 supporting two external displays in clamshell. If the MacBook Air M3 supported 32GB RAM, it would pretty much be a no-brainer to go from the M1 Pro to Air M3.

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#45

Post by switch007 »

£1,699 for 13" Air with M3 (8/10/16), 24GB RAM, 512GB

vs £2,299 (from Costco) for 14" MBP M3 Pro (11/14/16), 36GB RAM, 512GB

I'm unsure if £600 extra is worth it for average dev use? The main points I know are: better screen, speakers, fans, 12GB extra ram. But not sure about valuing those at £600. Hm

(I'm making this specific comparison because I've just ordered the MBP, but could return it, and get the MBA :D)

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#47

Post by bombcar »

the-grump wrote: post #14
dangoodmanUT wrote: post #9

it's so clear that they limit it to 24GB to prevent cannibalization of the macbook pro. I personally could go for a M3 base chip with 64GB or 128GB of memory.

And, of course, it starts at 8GB of RAM to nudge you up from $1100 to $1300/$1500. At which point you might as well spring for the Pro. I can't fault the business logic but as someone who'd only use a Mac for occasional iOS development, this nudging upward dissuades me from pursuing that idea altogether.

One you get to "reasonable specs" you're into the Pro, and they know it.

The Air with 16GB is not too bad, especially if you get the discounts that are everywhere.

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#48

Post by ctxMatters »

retskrad wrote: post #3

I can't tell the difference between my new M1 Max MacBook Pro and the new M3 Max Macbook Pro. Corporations have become pros at exploiting our human psychology. Their ads can make you believe that the smallest bump in improvements will make your older computer appear useless in comparison. That's why it's for the best if you avoid ads as much as possible.

[dead]

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#50

Post by pier25 »

addandsubtract wrote: post #22
retskrad wrote: post #3

I can't tell the difference between my new M1 Max MacBook Pro and the new M3 Max Macbook Pro. Corporations have become pros at exploiting our human psychology. Their ads can make you believe that the smallest bump in improvements will make your older computer appear useless in comparison. That's why it's for the best if you avoid ads as much as possible.

The M2 and M3 are more evolutions of the M series. If you already have an M1 machine, there's no real need to upgrade. But if you don't, the M3 seems like a great device to get.

Depends which chips you're comparing.

Eg: The M3 Max is a substantial improvement over the M2 Max in both CPU and GPU. But the M3 Pro is a moderate improvement at best compared to the M2 Pro.

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