A simple modification to the cooling system of the new MacBook Air with an M1 processor can offer up to 20% more performance . This is demonstrated in the Linus Tech Tips channel and other users who have replicated the idea as well.
Improve the performance of the MacBook Air M1 with that simple hack
Along with some other details such as the maximum brightness of the screen or the Touch Bar, the big difference between the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro with M1 chip is in the dissipation system . The first opts for a passive solution and the second for an active one, as does the Mac mini M1 that we already analyzed, however with a simple modification it is possible to obtain a performance with the new Air with Apple Silicon that would equal or even exceed the of the Pro model. Yes, as you are reading it.
Linus from the Linus Tech Tips channel posted a video showing how he had achieved an improvement of up to 20% in performance issues with the new MacBook Air M1. To do this, all he had to do was improve dissipation. This was done in a very simple way and within the reach of anyone, since it does not require any liquid nitrogen tank or other stories that we have already seen on occasion to force the overclocking of some CPUs.
Linus’s solution was simply to place a thermal pad , a thermal silica gel material that improves thermal conductivity by allowing heat transfer between two elements in a more efficient way. And be careful, best of all, these types of heating pads are very inexpensive.
Thus, using a Thermal Pad like the Thermalright 0.5mm and that costs only ten euros , the performance of the MacBook Air improved significantly when it performs long tasks in time and demands more from the new processor. Because that’s where the difference between the Air and Pro models is.
By having a passive ventilation system, although the processor is the same, the MacBook Air will see its performance reduced when it has to perform tasks that take up a lot of time. With this simple modification, the case is further exploited as a passive dissipation system and hence the least impact on performance. Because of course, if the processor takes longer to reach temperatures that force it to resort to thermal throttling , the longer it can go to maximum power.
Up to 20% more performance
After the Linus Tech Tips video and a few others, many users launched into this simple hack as we say. Because basically you just have to remove the cover that gives access to the different components of the equipment and apply said pad. There is no ginning heatsinks or anything like that.
Well, some benchmarks show that you can get around 20% more performance depending on what type of tasks. This means that there are times when it even exceeds the values obtained by the MacBook Pro that does have a fan for heat dissipation.
Cinebench R23 Multi Core
In the Cinebench multi core test there is not a big jump, but there are some extra points.
- New MacBook Air: 7527
- New Modified MacBook Air: 7795
Geekbench Single and Multi Core
In Geekbench, the results obtained by another channel (Created Las) are the following:
- New MacBook Air: 1495 and 6612
- New Modified MacBook Air: 1519 and 7723
8K video rendering in DaVinci Resolve
Rendering a video at 8K resolution in Solve Them the performance increase reaches 31%:
- New MacBook Air: 36:13 minutes
- New modified MacBook Air: 26:42 minutes
Modified MacBook Air M1 vs MacBook Pro M1
In the case of the comparison with the MacBook Pro, here either the same performance is obtained or it is improved and that is already much more striking:
For example, in Blender the modified Air M1 reaches 1017 points while the factory Pro M1 remains at 975 points. These are data from tests performed by Linus.
In Cinebench the Air M1 with Thermal Pad reaches 7795 points as we have seen and the Pro M1 stays at 7696 points. It is true that they are minimal differences, but there they are and are indicators of that decrease in performance when certain temperatures are reached.
You can see the full video here and it is true that many of those who have acquired the new Appple equipment will not do so, at least for the duration of the warranty, but it would be something to consider for those looking to get the most out of it or improve it. later with a solution available to everyone.