How is the new MacBook 12 from Apple doing about 2 years after its first release? Well, we would not say that it is "light years" ahead, since other manufacturers have not slept during this time and offer slim and likewise powerful mobile computers too. The time it takes until the first collapse (15 minutes) should be long enough for most demanding office tasks. The longer this takes place, the more "reserves" are available for the next try. The behavior can be easily explained with the passive cooling solution of the MB 12, which reaches its limits under prolonged load. In the following, the score almost reaches its initial value, but it falls notably faster during the following runs.
After another six runs, the clock rate collapses again, this time even more noticeably than the first time. It takes about 15 minutes before this occurs, whereas the processor can rest for a few seconds after each run due to the design of the test.Īfter the CPU has throttled for a while, it increases its speed again, but remains 15 to 20% below the initial results. Apparently the threshold of the passively cooling system is exceeded at that point and the CPU throttles significantly.
Then the performance falls slowly by about -10% before it collapses for the first time. The first quick glance at the diagram reveals that the MacBook 12 behaves oddly. As usual, we also let the current MacBook 12 run Cinebench in a loop in order to analyze the long-term behavior of the notebook.