The MacBook Air M4 could deliver MacBook Pro-level performance, leaks suggest
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Apple's MacBook Air M4 refresh is expected to come in the next few months, and we've already got a few early looks at how the M4 MacBook Air will fare.
The M4 Air surfaced on the Geekbench archives earlier this week (spotted by Wccftech) and indicated performance that rivals the M4 MacBook Pro 14. If this benchmark holds, you could get MacBook Pro performance at a budget price with the upcoming MacBook Air.
The leaked MacBook Air M4 benchmark was a Geekbench Metal run, testing the GPU of the M4's integrated graphics tile. The MacBook Air M4 scored 54,806 points on the Geekbench Metal benchmark.
The MacBook Air M4 used in the leaked benchmarks features 10 GPU cores, which is the same number of GPU cores as the M4 base chip on the Apple MacBook Pro 14 (M4, 2024).
If Apple follows the same pattern with the M4 MacBook Air as the MacBook Air M3 models, then this would be a benchmark for an upgraded chip, since the base M3 in the MacBook Air features 8 CPU cores and 8 GPU cores.
Also noteworthy is that the MacBook Air M4 in the leaked benchmark features upgraded RAM, with 24GB of memory onboard. So, base models of the Air with 16GB RAM won't benchmark quite as high as the laptop in this Geekbench run.
A Geekbench Metal score of 54,806 sounds pretty impressive. But how does it stack up?
We don't run the Geekbench Metal and Geekbench Vulkan benchmarks in our standard suite of lab tests, so we've got to rely on the official Geekbench archives for comparison scores to see how the MacBook Air M4 fares in comparison to the MacBook Air 13 (M3, 2024), MacBook Pro 14 (M4, 2024), and the MacBook Pro 16 (M4 Pro, 2024).
We don't expect the M4 in the MacBook Air to compete with the M4 Pro, but it serves as a good reference point since the M4 Pro is easily capable of taking on the M3 Max.
The MacBook Air M4 scored 33.5% higher on the Geekbench Metal test than the MacBook Air 13 M3, and it's just 4.8% lower the MacBook Pro 14 (M4, 2024).
Considering the MacBook Air is a fanless laptop design, the fact that it can put out GPU performance that's less than 5% under MacBook Pro 14 is beyond impressive.
The leaked MacBook Air is almost certainly an upgraded configuration, so the base MacBook Air M4 won't be getting MacBook Pro-like performance for $1,099. If Apple keeps the pricing for the M4 refresh the same as the M3, then a similarly configured MacBook Air M4 would cost about $1,499. This is still a more wallet-friendly price compared the MacBook Pro 14 which starts at $1,599 and would cost about $1,999 with upgraded RAM to 24GB.
So this particular MacBook Air M4 punches well above its weight-class on the Geekbench: Metal archives, but we'd expect the base configuration of the MacBook Air M4 to be a little less powerful. Not that it's a bad thing.
This means that the base MacBook Air M4 won't be quite as powerful as the MacBook Pro 14, but it will definitely be a powerhouse.
The MacBook Air M4 refresh is expected as early as March 2025.
Apple needs to do this one thing to make the M4 MacBook Air a clear winner among budget laptops
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