More importantly, the difference between testing from a stone cold computer to testing when the CPU/GPU is already hot became a much smaller ~150 versus ~500 with the stock configuration. In Geekbench 5, the computer, under sustained heavy workloads, improved by 12% in single-core and 37% in multi-core. The below is based on the i7 with 16GB of RAM and 1 TB SSD.

I now believe that Apple designed a great product that’s been hampered by poor execution in the manufacturing channel (understandable given my computer was manufactured during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic). To say that I was pleased with the outcome would be an understatement.

Installing a heat pad between the heat sink and the bottom case.

Replacing the thermal paste with a better quality thermal interface material, which includes a copper shim.

I ultimately decided I was going to methodically try the following two common solutions that people had implemented and take before/after measures: While I used to build PC’s early in my life, I’m pretty reticent to open up a new computer and fiddle with a screwdriver! However, the ideas posted on the forum topic seemed to be easy to implement, and more importantly, easy to reverse in case I decided it wasn’t worthwhile. The solutions include a wide range including adding heat transfer pipes, creating more efficient air channels, and improving the heat transfer from the CPU to the heatsink and external case. I went online to see if my experience was an isolated one I was fortunate to come across an epic forum topic on. I had concluded that the computer was great at short “bursty” type of work (clicking on a RAW file, moving a slider in Capture One, importing files, etc.), but lagged significantly behind my 2018 13″ MacBook Pro i7 in sustained workloads (exporting raw files to JPEG, or rendering video files). While this is a 41% increase in duration, it was a tradeoff I was willing to make. The 13″ MacBook Air 2020 i7/16GB/1TB (hereafter referred to as MBA) took 20.5 minutes whereas the 13″ MacBook Pro 2018 i7/16GB/1GB (hereafter referred to as MBP) took only 12.9 minutes. I conducted a comparison of how much time it takes to export 125 Fujifilm GFX50R images on both computers. While the processor speed never dropped below Apple’s marketed 1.2GHz, the turbo boost function operated for a shorter duration than I expected, and the fans would spin up to the maximum 8,000rpm frequently.

At the start of sustained workloads, the computer was great, but after a few seconds, the performance would suffer.

Unfortunately, with more time with the computer, I started to notice something bothersome.

Macbook air 2020 used