Ableton Forum

Cheers!

Just in case anyone is wondering, here's my conclusion for now...

Reminder: I currently use a MBP (early 2015, dual-core i5, 8GB).

First of all, benchmarks so far show that the i5 - i7 difference is not a lot (as expected - 10% if you're lucky). But the upgrade over here (NL) is only 80€ so I think that's fair and useful for L10.

Compared to my current MBP the performance should be more or less double when it comes to multi-core CPU usage and unmeasurably more for the GPU. This means I can comfortably run Live on my big screen with the new MBA (this is not doable with my current MBP). Single core it will easily outperform almost any MBP that came before 2018.

The upgrade to 16GB is an additional 250€, which is a lot. Even worse, this brings the price to what I suspect will be the entry price of the upcoming (newly designed 14 inch?) MBP with its much better sustained performance (and most likely also the bump to a 256GB SSD and maybe even 16GB base model - c'mon Apple).

My current MBP also 'only' has 8GB. If I quit all non-essential software (mail, Safari, etc) I have >5GB of RAM space for Live. While not ideal, it's certainly not an issue unless you're planning on running huge sets and a lot of plugins in realtime.

Bottom line: if you're willing to freeze tracks, not run huge / heavy projects for longer periods etc, this is a pretty good machine for Live.

The popular statement 'Air is only for typing and browsing' is rubbish IMHO, as it runs circles around a lot of older Pros. Just make sure you buy at least the quad-core i5.

My .02 cents...



Now, should I wait for the new MacBook Pro or not? It's going to be an interesting machine for sure.

Nice overview and info on the i7.

https://youtu.be/SBdFf5m27YY

Hello,
I am using a 2015 MacBook Air with dual core 2.2 GHz Intel Core i7. Some people seem surprised when I tell them this existed.
It's fine for my needs (which are admittedly modest). With that being said I've shown my Live sets to some people who work
at Apple stores and they were all surprised that an Air can run the sets I'm running - not several tracks, but at least 10 or so CPU
hungry plugins running.

I've been patiently waiting for a Pro that's state of the art to come out and perhaps now is the time. Any thoughts on that?
The new Airs appear to be great - at first. But I've read that they can have over heating issues. If that weren't the case I'd think the
new 1.2 Ghz quad core would be more powerful than my 2.2 GHz due core.

So I guess I've answered my own question and the Pro is the way to go. Any comments on the best time to get one (are we expecting
some awesome new update anytime soon?), or anything else, are welcome. Thanks.

So for the last 5 years of so I've been using a 2014 Macbook Air 1.4ghz, 4gb of RAM and honestly even that's been good enough for Ableton in my experience (version 9, if that matters). Usually have 4-5 Serum tracks on the go, a bunch of other plug-ins and maybe 20-30 tracks total. Admittedly I do get the occasional drop out and latency issue - but it's never felt like a particularly big deal.

So at any rate I emptied an entire coffee into the keyboard a couple of weeks ago so pulled the trigger on one of the new i5s. Looking at the benchmarks there should be more than enough power there to give me a lot more headroom than currently. That all said I do maybe feel some slight trepidation about the overheating and the reduced clock speed (which I know with double the cores and RAM shouldn't really matter that much).

In terms of new Macbook Pros I've read that Apple might be moving to their own chip architecture next year - so (given that the proprietary chipset iPads are outstripping some fairly recent Macbooks at the moment) that might be worth waiting for...you know, for those of us that didn't caffeinated their current laptops and can actually decide when to buy a new one.

New Pro coming in...

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/05/ ... rformance/

Bottom line, the cheaper models are still using 8th gen CPUs. Compared to Gen 10 in the Air this is a bit disappointing as GPU and for example RAM speeds are a lot higher with the current CPUs... The only advantage is the cheaper upgrade price for the old RAM.

A_Cow wrote: ↑

Fri May 01, 2020 7:27 am

...so pulled the trigger on one of the new i5s.

Do you already have it up and running?

Eliah Levy wrote: ↑

Sun Apr 19, 2020 6:01 pm

I am using a 2015 MacBook Air with dual core 2.2 GHz Intel Core i7.

Hi! Can you please tell us your RAM spec?

Cheers!

Tuur wrote: ↑

Mon May 04, 2020 12:40 pm

A_Cow wrote: ↑

Fri May 01, 2020 7:27 am

...so pulled the trigger on one of the new i5s.

Do you already have it up and running?

So yes, I do now have it up and running and here are my thoughts on it:

The specs of my specific model are that it is the 2020 Macbook Air with 1.1ghz i5 and 8gb RAM

The good stuff
Compared to my 2014 Air (1.4ghz i5 4gb ram) there is, unsurprisingly, a decent improvement.

On my old machine CPU usage on a pretty complicated track I used to benchmark was 70-90% on average with frequent stutters and drop outs. The track included maybe 6 serum instruments, some 3rd party plugins, 20-30 tracks in total, most with fairly complex effect chains.

On my new machine it was 20-50% CPU (usually 20-30%) with no dropouts. So, broadly, it is capable of handling quite intensive tracks. I don't know if I'd be completely comfortable playing live without simplifying effects chains and flattening various things, but I'd probably do that whatever machine I was using.

Elsewhere, switching between apps is very snappy and (this really isn't a thing I cared about at all or expected) the speakers are absolute witchcraft - considering the thing is right in front of me the stereo width is insanely good. The keyboard is also a dream and sounds pretty good to my ears (if that matters).

The bad stuff
Despite all this I'm considering returning it for one of the pros that have just been announced...though I'm very torn for reasons that I'll get onto.

Specifically it's the heat dissipation that's the issue. There's a lot of youtube videos that cover this in more detail but basically the fan is not attached to the heatsink / CPU, it's just a thing that sits on the other side of the laptop blowing air around the body, rather than focusing specifically on the thing that gets really hot.

What this means in practice is that the CPU gets hot and stays hot - meaning that performing intensive tasks for prolonged periods start taxing the CPU to the extent that it needs throttled to cool it down much earlier than should otherwise happen. The fan also seems to go to it's max speed very quickly, even when Live (my only intensive program) isn't open. Even going to a resource heavy website in Chrome seems to push it harder than one would expect from a new 2020 machine.

Also worth baring in mind if you're on Ableton 9, this thing ships with Catalina which will bork 9 in some ways. Strangely for me Live 9 is actually working with some issues around using mp3s in tracks, but others have reported that it won't even open, so beware. I didn't try to downgrade to Mojave as this seemed quite tricky and I don't know whether these newer machines support an OS that precedes them. I've started using the Live 10 trial (90 days is a great length of trial) and will probably buy it later. Additionally I noticed maybe a 5-10% higher CPU load on the new Air in Live 10 vs. 9.

Why am I undecided
Had these MacBook pros been available a few weeks ago, I think I would have just gone for one. The main turn off for me with the 2019 model was the old keyboard and it's well documented issues. But, it's also worth baring in mind that the tech that's within the base level 2020 Airs is newer than the base level 2020 pros. The Air's have 10th gen intel processors (with the pros on 8th gen) and faster RAM.

So basically I've got 14 days to decide if I want to return it. On paper the Air is a superb machine at a great price, and more often than not it feels that way too. But what's irritating is that it often feels like it can't realise that potential due to the heat issues. If you've been using Live for more than 10 minutes you can assume that the fan is running loud, and will continue to until you stop. The Pros on the other hand have slightly older processors but may be better able to realise that potential as they don't have the same heat issues.

Thanks a lot!

Re: Chrome - yeah, it's not the most efficient browser on the block.

I'm also not sure yet. I like the more consistent output of the Pro, but I can get a gen 10 i7 Air for much less. I guess I'll wait a bit for reviews / benchmarks covering the cheapest Pro model vs the i7 Air, but for now I'm leaning towards the Air.

I'm definitely not shelling out major cash for a gen 10 Pro. Hopefully.

No problem at all - happy to help. I would say that I'd be slightly wary of the i7, it's a chunk more money and it's unclear if the computer can actually utilise that increase in power over the i5. Even the benchmarks are quite similar (though given my complaints predominantly relate to long intensive use, I would kind of expect in this scenario that the performance would be even closer).

I have seen one review in particular that even went as far as to suggest that the i3 had less issues with overheating so ran smoother (but that seems like a bold claim).

The other thing that I forgot to mention is that I do wonder if some of the issues aren't as bad as when I started using it yesterday - I suppose spotlight would be indexing etc, so maybe some things have improved. It's hard to say.

Hi, the Ableton min system requirements state, the below [1]. Would someone be able to confirm, from what year and what generation i5 are they making those statements. Can we assume is based on an i5 Coffe Lake gen CPU around when 10.x was released?

[1] https://help.ableton.com/hc/en-us/artic ... quirements

They were talking about the first ever i5 AFAIK. It came right after the Core Duo.

So any i5 will do according to this...

A_Cow wrote: ↑

Wed May 06, 2020 12:29 pm

No problem at all - happy to help. I would say that I'd be slightly wary of the i7, it's a chunk more money and it's unclear if the computer can actually utilise that increase in power over the i5. Even the benchmarks are quite similar (though given my complaints predominantly relate to long intensive use, I would kind of expect in this scenario that the performance would be even closer).

Cheers! I've seen some tests (and Geekbench) where the i7 advantage seems reasonable. Over here the i7 is only 80 bucks more than the i5, and since it has a bit more cache and better video performance, I have no problem with that.

Ok, I've now made up my mind, and I think I'm going to return the Air. It's a shame, because it's a properly nice little machine that I've really enjoyed using - but quite apart from anything else it's been unexpectedly tricky to properly mix the track I'm currently working on over the noise of the fan.

Looking forward to your Pro impressions.