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But for sustained tasks, temperatures will be high. Two seconds of Turbo Boost is all you need to get OneNote open right away. It seems that the approach is to, when faced with any sort of CPU task, boost the CPU as high as it will go until 100 degrees and keep it there. I'd rather Turbo Boost be off if there's no difference whatsoever.Īpple's thermal curve makes me nervous. So why does Chrome / YouTube / macOS feel the need to boost the CPU clock speeds and heat up? Please enlighten me if you know why. However, I had no frame drops / any discernible difference between having boost on or off. In this test, Auto = Off all the time, since my Turbo Boost only enables at 65 degrees or below. Max Turbo: 95 to 100 degrees No Turbo: 70 to 80 degrees Auto Turbo: 70 to 80 degrees In this test, I just wanted to gauge the temperature range in Chrome while watching 4K YouTube video. Test 3 - Watching 4K video (Temperatures) While Auto was slower due to temps rising towards the end of the test, real world usage will hardly involve launching 7 apps consecutively, so I think Auto works well here. Split second loads are no problem for the MacBook Air because there isn't much time to heat up! So using Turbo Boost can really make a big difference. This test surprised me but also shows what Turbo Boost does best. Max Turbo: 32s No Turbo: 67s (!) Auto Turbo: 41s (Word, PowerPoint, Excel, OneNote, GarageBand, iMovie, Visual Studio Code) Then, I opened up 7 apps, each time waiting for the previous app to open before opening the next one. In this test, I restarted the computer and waited for background processes to settle. Test 2 - Opening 7 apps (App loading time, 7 apps is to reduce human error) (By no means am I saying that the thermal performance is good, because 1.1 GHz is a very low base clock to begin with.) Why was Auto cooler? I have no explanation.Īlso this is where I can say that the MacBook Air thermal throttles but doesn't overheat because it slows down its boost to stay below 100 degrees, but is perfectly capable of staying at or above base clock all the time.
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On Auto, Turbo Boost was never enabled as the temperatures were too high for the fans to slow down, thus explaining the almost identical score with No Turbo.
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Without Turbo, the Air completed the test at 1.1GHz all the way.
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Even on Max Turbo, the Air went at 3.2 GHz for half a second before running at 1.5 GHz the rest of the way. Let's get something straight, all three scores are dreadful. Max Turbo: 948 (const 100 deg) No Turbo: 645 (const 85 deg) Auto Turbo: 638 (const 80 deg) Test 1 - Cinebench R20 (Sustained workload) Macs Fan Control was set to activate the fan at 65 degrees and max out at 85 degrees, while Turbo Boost Switcher was set to disable at 3500 rpm fan speed and re-enable when fan speed dropped below 2800 rpm. I did this by (sigh) purchasing Macs Fan Control and Turbo Boost Switcher Pro. Therefore, I decided to try a middle ground - enable Turbo Boost, but disable it at the slightest hint of a sustained workload, and only re-enable it when temps are low again. But when I'm running at 50 degrees, Turbo Boost could definitely make for a snappier experience when opening an app or any other few-second tasks, and I'd be missing out on that with Turbo Boost permanently off. Never will the Mac go above 80 degrees (Cinebench aside).
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So, I decided to give Turbo Boost switcher a shot.ĭisabling Turbo Boost completely means that I never have to worry about temperatures at all. I love this beautiful gold MacBook Air, and boy do I want it to last. I live in a 32 degree climate so that doesn't help matters. I have definitely seen temperatures above 90 degrees in my workload, which is many apps and tabs but nothing you would consider Pro. While some of it may be exaggerated, I have been monitoring my temperatures closely. I'm sure most have seen Max Tech's videos about the 2020 MBA's thermals.
#Turbo boost switcher mac free download pro
Buying the Pro version of TB switcher and Macs Fan Control like I did to use the Auto Mode isn't worth it because Turbo will be off most of the time anyway. TL DR - If you're worried (overly paranoid?) about temperatures and longevity like I am, use Turbo Boost Switcher Free and disable Turbo Boost permanently.
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