No compare it to the MBA 15 w 512GB SSD and 16GB RAM upgrades and the 70W charger from their educational store + $150 gift card offer. $1575 inc Cali tax
Yes but the AMD design draws double the power even though it was fabbed on a lower process node. I mean it defeats the purpose of a portable. Now you need double the battery weight or lose half the runtime. No, the M2 still wins. If processing is the goal at the expense of portability then you can buy a nice 64 core EPYC system for $1700
Yeah I was just referring to default prices. The only one I modified was the comparison to the Overkill system because the base Apple configuration does not have 32GB of RAM and 1TB SSD.
Ok, but that same spec is 1699 plus tax direct from Apple without a discount so the same as frameworks pre built 16 inch option that ships in Q4. If you compare their “build it yourself and bring your own OS” version without memory or storage shipping in late Q4 the base MBA 15 +70W charger w/o discount is still $100 cheaper, shipping now and very likely will outperform w double the battery life
What's the comparison look like with 2TB of storage? And maybe a bit more RAM (I don't think MBAs let you upgrade after purchase so buying a 512GB machine seems shortsighted for a lot of use cases unless all your development is in the cloud)
The storage and memory upgrades are expensive and also have a penalty in terms of power. Memory draws the same current regardless of if it’s being used and that is significant. Unified memory is also very different, has much higher bandwidth than RAM and lower latency. You can’t compare unified memory with RAM.
As far as the SSD, the base option comes with one 256GB NAND flash IC, where if you upgrade to 512GB they have to add a second. That matters because adding a second means you double the IO bandwidth using their current design. It’s something like 3500 vs 7500 MB/s. If you add more NAND modules you also scale up the IO speed further but the difference between 3500 and 7500 is significant for all workloads where above that you probably won’t see a gain except in niche applications like video editing, assuming you have the complimentary processing power and unified memory to utilize that throughput. For storage, Apple provides 2TB cloud service for $10/mo and these have wifi 6E so it’s cheaper to use the cloud than buy the storage, assuming it’s not working storage, and safer too.
Also, upgrades on Apple products hold their market value very poorly. The M2 studio just came out and maxed out M1 units are on sale NIB at 1/4 price of retail from 3 months ago, which is not at all a true quantification of performance since the M2 is only what 15-20% faster.
So after quite some research for the MBA 15; 16GB + 512GB + 70W adapter is the optimum for power draw, performance, cost and value preservation.
Overall, it seems the best value strategy with Apple products is to take the first upgrade for memory and storage and leave it at that. You can then resell every year and recoup 60% and upgrade to the latest w a new battery. Apple is actually very cheap after the first investment considering the productivity and time saving benefits, and you can’t steal an Apple device. Just don’t drop it
Also if you are considering big upgrades, compare the cost to just buying two base units as the base units are way closer to the manufacturing cost. Often there is more benefit to having two expendable units and they will hold their resale value better.
Apple doesn’t verify that purchases from the educational store are from students it’s honor system. Those prices are available to everyone, in small quantities.
Sit the 15 inch MBA next to the 16 inch MBP and the screens look identical. Performance wise the M2 w unified memory crushes X86 systems across the benchmarks at half the power budget.
senknvd|2 years ago
[1]: https://www.notebookcheck.net/M2-vs-R7-7840HS_14521_14948.24...
trashcanman|2 years ago
ceearrbee|2 years ago
Adding all those situational discounts is not a fair comparison since it requires a very specific set of circumstances to achieve it.
zmk5|2 years ago
trashcanman|2 years ago
Rebelgecko|2 years ago
trashcanman|2 years ago
As far as the SSD, the base option comes with one 256GB NAND flash IC, where if you upgrade to 512GB they have to add a second. That matters because adding a second means you double the IO bandwidth using their current design. It’s something like 3500 vs 7500 MB/s. If you add more NAND modules you also scale up the IO speed further but the difference between 3500 and 7500 is significant for all workloads where above that you probably won’t see a gain except in niche applications like video editing, assuming you have the complimentary processing power and unified memory to utilize that throughput. For storage, Apple provides 2TB cloud service for $10/mo and these have wifi 6E so it’s cheaper to use the cloud than buy the storage, assuming it’s not working storage, and safer too.
Also, upgrades on Apple products hold their market value very poorly. The M2 studio just came out and maxed out M1 units are on sale NIB at 1/4 price of retail from 3 months ago, which is not at all a true quantification of performance since the M2 is only what 15-20% faster.
So after quite some research for the MBA 15; 16GB + 512GB + 70W adapter is the optimum for power draw, performance, cost and value preservation.
Overall, it seems the best value strategy with Apple products is to take the first upgrade for memory and storage and leave it at that. You can then resell every year and recoup 60% and upgrade to the latest w a new battery. Apple is actually very cheap after the first investment considering the productivity and time saving benefits, and you can’t steal an Apple device. Just don’t drop it
Also if you are considering big upgrades, compare the cost to just buying two base units as the base units are way closer to the manufacturing cost. Often there is more benefit to having two expendable units and they will hold their resale value better.
dghlsakjg|2 years ago
trashcanman|2 years ago
Sit the 15 inch MBA next to the 16 inch MBP and the screens look identical. Performance wise the M2 w unified memory crushes X86 systems across the benchmarks at half the power budget.