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  • - Hey guys, this is Austin.

  • This is the 2018 MacBook Air.

  • And for $1,200, there's been a lot of controversy

  • about the performance of this laptop,

  • and on top of that, just exactly what's inside this thing.

  • So, of course, the question is how powerful is it really?

  • Interestingly, there's only a single processor option

  • for the MacBook Air this year.

  • It is a dual-core Core i5 8210Y.

  • This is an 8th generation Y-Series processor,

  • which does give it a dual-core chip with hyper-threading.

  • And the clock speeds actually aren't all that impressive.

  • It has a 1.6 gigahertz base and a 3.6 gigahertz boost,

  • a far cry from a lot of the quad-core systems

  • that you can often find at this price point.

  • So there's some interesting things with this chip.

  • First of all, it has UHD 617 graphics,

  • something I've never seen in any kind of Intel chip yet.

  • And also interestingly, this is a 7-watt TDP.

  • So what that means is that most of these Y-Series processors

  • are used in things like the 12-inch MacBook.

  • Now, that does not have any kind of fan.

  • And, originally, I was actually told at the Apple event

  • that this MacBook here is fan-less.

  • However, a lot of reports have shown

  • that this actually does have a fan.

  • Also, I updated it and heard the fan.

  • So let's open it up and see what's actually inside. (laughs)

  • I thought we had to, like, clarify that I heard a loud fan.

  • It's usually a pretty good indicator there's a fan inside.

  • Just sayin'.

  • Take this off and immediately we see that there is a fan.

  • So it shouldn't be a big surprise.

  • So what's kind of interesting about the MacBook Air

  • this year is that this is one of the smallest fans

  • I've ever seen for cooling in a laptop.

  • Now, this is actually not strictly necessary.

  • If they would have gone for a slightly lower-end

  • Y-Series processor with a lower, like, 5-watt TDP,

  • for example, the fan would not have been necessary.

  • But on the flip side, that means that you're really reliant

  • on a lot of other issues with cooling.

  • So say you were in a very hot environment.

  • The actually chassis of the computer

  • really can't dissipate as much heat,

  • where even a small fan like this should make

  • a big difference, and it gives you the added benefit

  • of getting a couple extra watts of TDP,

  • which will give you a little bit more performance.

  • I will say, it is a very, very clean layout.

  • So not only do we have the Trackpad here,

  • but we also have our three battery cells.

  • And what's interesting about this battery is that,

  • at least based on the rumors, and certainly taking a look

  • at it seems to sort of back that up,

  • is that unlike most MacBook Pros that are current

  • where you kind of have to replace a large chunk

  • of the laptop to be able to get rid of the batteries,

  • with this, it looks like you could

  • probably swap these out pretty easily.

  • You also see the fairly large speakers,

  • and then we've got what is a pretty small motherboard,

  • and I assume that's probably our T2 chip underneath here.

  • Hey, look at that.

  • The Apple T2 chip.

  • So this is actually very similar to some of the SoCs

  • that you'll find inside an iPhone,

  • but this handles a lot of the sort of lower-end processes

  • on the MacBook, including encrypting the SSD,

  • running your Touch ID.

  • It's got the secure enclave;

  • it's got the ISP which runs the webcam.

  • There's a lot of very smart things that are on the iPhone

  • that all run from this tiny, little T2 chip.

  • All right, so with the computer put back together,

  • let's actually see how it performs.

  • Starting out with, we do have Geekbench,

  • which is the classic.

  • All right, there we go.

  • 4301 on single-core and 7725 on multi-core.

  • It is an upgrade over the last generation MacBook Air,

  • but it is not a big upgrade over, well, much anything else.

  • I mean, sure, it's decent as a dual core,

  • but we really have moved on to quad-core

  • across the board for the most part.

  • Next up, we have the Geekbench compute test.

  • This one's kind of interesting,

  • because this does have a unique GPU.

  • I've never seen the 617 available.

  • Now, it is one of the Intel UHD Series GPUs,

  • so it's probably not going to be anything crazy,

  • but maybe somewhat faster.

  • Maybe they added two more numbers to the last one I tested.

  • This is 22135.

  • That actually is a little faster.

  • Now, to be fair, I'm running Metal right now,

  • but that's actually pretty decent.

  • So that's a fair bit over the 615, and that's closer

  • to what you would find with the full UHD 620 graphics.

  • I've gotta say, we're just getting in the video,

  • and I've already found some interesting stuff

  • with this MacBook.

  • Let's keep going and get into a little bit of Cinebench.

  • So what's interesting here is I actually think

  • the Y-Series processors have been changed this generation.

  • So not to get too far into nerd town,

  • but traditionally, Y-Series on the Intel side

  • means it's their very, very low TDP chips,

  • which are traditionally used in fan-less designs.

  • Now, obviously, this is slightly higher

  • and it is, of course, using a very small fan,

  • but instead of getting the traditional dual-core chip

  • with the low-end GPU, we're getting the same low-end CPU,

  • so obviously we need to keep that TDP low,

  • but we are getting that bigger GPU.

  • So, for context, the 12-inch MacBook is $100 more expensive,

  • and, with that, you get the Core m3,

  • and that's not even really going to be on par

  • with what we're getting out of this.

  • You really would need to bump up to something closer

  • to the Core i7 to get equivalent clock speeds,

  • and I don't think you're gonna get anywhere near

  • that same GPU performance.

  • All right, so 121 on single-core and 250 on multi-core.

  • That's not that impressive, to be totally honest.

  • It's fine, but it's basically

  • what I would expect out of a Y-Series chip,

  • like the 12-inch MacBook, for example.

  • The GPU, though, that's what I want to see right now.

  • 32, yeah, there we go again.

  • So with the 12-inch MacBook, you're looking at a score

  • roughly around 25, 24, something like that,

  • so 32 is a pretty decent bump.

  • Now, all of this being said,

  • this is not an incredibly powerful laptop, right?

  • I mean, this is still a MacBook Air.

  • It's still got a dual-core processor.

  • Especially on that GPU side, I'm pretty impressed.

  • Next up, let's test the SSD performance on the MacBook Air.

  • Now, we do have the base model,

  • which has a very, very tiny 128 gigs of storage,

  • kinda not even cool at this point,

  • but, well, okay, that's pretty decently fast.

  • So 1,917 megabytes per second on the read

  • and 476 on the write.

  • That's pretty solid.

  • So, for context, that's faster

  • than any other 128 gig drive I've tested

  • and it's not too far off of the 13-inch MacBook Pro

  • with the 256 gig drive.

  • This is a very fast SSD.

  • Next up, we have something a little bit more intense:

  • a full 4K video edit inside Final Cut Pro X.

  • So, for reference, this is a project

  • from the This Is channel,

  • so it's almost exactly five minutes long

  • and it's a mix of ProRes,

  • a lot of graphics and stock footage,

  • and it's about, I don't know, 70% rendered or so.

  • So I kinda scrolled through here.

  • Its performance actually holding up reasonably well.

  • Oh, and just so you guys know,

  • I am editing off of a Samsung T3 SSD

  • mostly because there's not enough storage on the MacBook

  • to fit, well, anything, but especially not

  • a bunch of 4K video. (laughs)

  • (video playing)

  • I mean, that's not bad.

  • It's definitely able to play it back.

  • What I'm curious about is what

  • the actual export times will be.

  • So with a fully rendered timeline of ProRes 422, let's see

  • how long this five-minute 4K video takes to export.

  • So, settings are correct.

  • This is H264.

  • All right, ready, set,

  • go.

  • (heavy rock music)

  • All right, so just over six-and-a-half minutes

  • to render a five-minute timeline.

  • Now, no, you're not going to want to spend

  • a lot of time editing on the MacBook Air,

  • specifically with 4K footage, but it is possible.

  • However, we have a slightly different method

  • for speeding things up.

  • In true Building the Ultimate fashion,

  • the MacBook Air supports full Thunderbolt 3,

  • which means that we can add an external GPU,

  • because why not?

  • So this is the Gigabyte Gaming Box

  • with a full AMD RX 580 GPU inside.

  • Now, recently, Final Cut has received full support

  • for external GPUs.

  • And especially with such a thin and light laptop like this,

  • I'm curious to see just how well it performs.

  • Now, no, we don't have any kind of crazy

  • scientific tests here.

  • What I do have is, well, the curiosity

  • of how far we can actually push it.

  • So, specifically, with Final Cut,

  • it does look like the GPU is being used.

  • It's hard to benchmark exactly

  • how much of a difference it makes.

  • But just for some reference here,

  • this is all playing back at higher quality,

  • and I am running it at full 4K in unrendered timeline,

  • and the computer's able to keep up reasonably well.

  • So we were going to try Fortnite running

  • on the internal GPU of the MacBook,

  • but I don't want to be here all night,

  • so let's get the external GPU going.

  • (groans)

  • Why do we ever try to play Fortnite on Mac?

  • This is always such a disaster of just waiting

  • and crashing and just being garbage.

  • So the new MacBook Air is a little bit more powerful

  • than I expected, but it is definitely...

  • Did it just switch?

  • Did it just start loading?

  • What?

  • Are you serious?

  • It actually took 20 minutes to...

  • Oh.

  • (Ken laughing) Oh, okay.

  • All right, hopefully you guys enjoyed this video.

  • The 13-inch MacBook Air is a little bit more powerful

  • than I expected, and you can do some stuff with it,

  • but don't get your hopes up,

  • like playing a game of Fortnite or anything.

  • If you're bored, though, you can feel free

  • to check out This Is where's there's lots of videos

  • that aren't boring.

  • If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go be really frustrated

  • at why this has taken 20 minutes to load

  • and then logs me out.

- Hey guys, this is Austin.

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