I remember reading that with the M2 Macbook Air, there was a difference in architecture between the base 256GB model and the higher end 512 such that the 512 model performed much faster (not related to the storage per se, but the number of NAND chips or something - all Greek to me). Does anyone know if there's a similar issue with the M3 Macbook Air?
Thanks
[Re-Titled By Moderator]
MacBook Air 13″, macOS 11.7
Peter Roussak wrote:
I remember reading that with the M2 Macbook Air, there was a difference in architecture between the base 256GB model and the higher end 512 such that the 512 model performed much faster (not related to the storage per se, but the number of NAND chips or something - all Greek to me). Does anyone know if there's a similar issue with the M3 Macbook Air?
On M1 MacBook Airs with 256 GB SSDs, there were two flash chips, each providing 128 GB of storage. You can think of a M1 MacBook Air with a 256 GB SSD as having a four-lane highway between the M1 chip and the flash chips containing the SSD's data, allowing two travel lanes to be used at the same time.
M1 <------------------- Flash chip 1 (128 GB)
M1 <------------------- Flash chip 2 (128 GB)
=================================================
M1 -------------------> Flash chip 1 (128 GB)
M1 -------------------> Flash chip 2 (128 GB)
A M2 MacBook Air with a 256 GB SSD has all of the storage on a single 256 GB chip. So there is only one "travel lane" in each direction.
M2 <------------------- Flash chip 1 (256 GB)
M2 -------------------> Flash chip 1 (256 GB)
Even given that, I believe the 256 GB SSD turned out to be faster than any USB 3.0 / SATA SSD you can buy. It just wasn't as fast as you'd expect a modern internal SSD to be.
Reportedly, M3 MacBook Airs with only 256 GB of SSD space are back to using a (2 x 128 GB) arrangement.
9to5Mac – Base M3 MacBook Air offers significantly faster SSD speeds than before
Peter Roussak wrote:
I remember reading that with the M2 Macbook Air, there was a difference in architecture between the base 256GB model and the higher end 512 such that the 512 model performed much faster (not related to the storage per se, but the number of NAND chips or something - all Greek to me). Does anyone know if there's a similar issue with the M3 Macbook Air?
On M1 MacBook Airs with 256 GB SSDs, there were two flash chips, each providing 128 GB of storage. You can think of a M1 MacBook Air with a 256 GB SSD as having a four-lane highway between the M1 chip and the flash chips containing the SSD's data, allowing two travel lanes to be used at the same time.
M1 <------------------- Flash chip 1 (128 GB)
M1 <------------------- Flash chip 2 (128 GB)
=================================================
M1 -------------------> Flash chip 1 (128 GB)
M1 -------------------> Flash chip 2 (128 GB)
A M2 MacBook Air with a 256 GB SSD has all of the storage on a single 256 GB chip. So there is only one "travel lane" in each direction.
M2 <------------------- Flash chip 1 (256 GB)
M2 -------------------> Flash chip 1 (256 GB)
Even given that, I believe the 256 GB SSD turned out to be faster than any USB 3.0 / SATA SSD you can buy. It just wasn't as fast as you'd expect a modern internal SSD to be.
Reportedly, M3 MacBook Airs with only 256 GB of SSD space are back to using a (2 x 128 GB) arrangement.
9to5Mac – Base M3 MacBook Air offers significantly faster SSD speeds than before
The 13" M3 MacBook Air comes in three variations based on CPU cores, GPU cores, & Unified Memory (RAM).
What you would want will depend on what you want to use this laptop for. All these variations come with an 8-core CPU. The major differences will be the GPU cores (8 vs. 10), and RAM (8GB vs. 24GB) ... and storage (256GB vs. 2TB)
At the top level for overall performance, you would equipped this laptop as follows:
That would put its price tag at around $2300 U.S., about $1200 more than the base configuration.
Again, it would depend on what you want to use it for. For graphics design, gaming, video production, etc., you will want to go with the maximum configuration. For basic web browsing, letter writing, etc., you can easily get away with the base version. What affects overall performance most will be RAM and storage. With that I would recommend at least 16GB of RAM, and 1TB for storage.
I would suggest getting at least 16 GB of RAM. (If you are running programs like Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom, and Lightroom Classic, there may be scenarios in which you would benefit from more.). You cannot add RAM inside, or outside, the machine after purchase – so choose wisely.
You can't add internal SSD space after purchase, either, but at least there, you have the option of external storage.
Thanks, that's exactly what I was looking for.
Right, I do very little of that, mostly browsing, some streaming, working with Office files, light photo editing, but worth thinking about.
Is there performance difference between MacBook Air M3 models
