BEST VALUE Mac EVER! M4 MacBook Air vs M1 Pro MacBook Pro Comparison

This is the base M4 MacBook Air with 16 gigs of unified memory. And right here I have my 16-in M1 Pro MacBook Pro. And I

decided to compare M1 Pro versus M4 because it's been 5 years and I guess right now M4 and M1 Pro are more than comparable. So let's take a

comparable. So let's take a look. What's good guys? My name is Alak

look. What's good guys? My name is Alak Nikit and you're watching No Limits on channel. And just a quick disclaimer

channel. And just a quick disclaimer guys, I didn't do a ton of tests. I did

do some, but this video is more like my own feedback from a user standpoint. How

good it is at work and how does it compare to the 8 GB version of the M2 MacBook Air base version because I also did own that one and we'll be comparing all three just, you know, for fun. And

we'll start off with the CPU test, Gigbench 6, guys. So, right here you can see the M2, M4, and M1 Pro. You can read all the settings. We have different amount of cores, the PC coursees, and

the EC coursees. You can check them on the top. The M1 Pro in single core

the top. The M1 Pro in single core scores 2,329 compared to 3,670 on the M4 and M2 is really close

to M1 Pro. So here you can see the difference in single core speed and you can really feel it when you do like web browsing or single core related tasks in the internet for example. This computer

does really feel more snappy. And in

terms of the multi-core, you can see that the M4 is now even faster than the M1 Pro with eight performance cores and two efficiency cores having only four performance cores and six efficiency

cores. And those efficiency cores in the

cores. And those efficiency cores in the M4 are really doing the heavy lifting.

So they're pretty powerful as well. So

this means that if you have a CPU related task, then this computer will do it faster than this pretty beefy one.

But guys, until it starts throttling and overheating. And here's the speedometer

overheating. And here's the speedometer 3.0 no test. And as you can tell, the M4 is 50% faster in single core operations than the M1 Pro. And you do really notice this difference. So on the M1

Pro, it's okay. I mean, it's fine. I got

used to it, but when I started using this machine and browsing tabs and etc., it's just much more snappy. It feels so much faster. And one more pretty

much faster. And one more pretty interesting thing, I'm using the IAT menu uh while I'm exporting 500 photos from Lightroom. And as you can tell, we

from Lightroom. And as you can tell, we have the efficiency cores right here.

six of them and we have the blue ones.

They are the performance cores and as you can tell we have all the heavy lifting on the efficiency cores. That's

interesting. We have 73% of GPU used, 43% of memory used. And the temperature on the GPU is 80° and on the CPU is around 83°, but this computer does go up

to about 105° at peak and then it throttles down to about 90 80° and uh you're not getting the full performance.

I'll show you some tests in a minutes.

Now we know about the CPU. What about

the GPU? So, here we have the GPU benchmark. And here it is. 41,000 points

benchmark. And here it is. 41,000 points

on the M2 and 8 core GPU. Also, on the M4, we have an 8 core GPU at 48,000 points. It's not a huge boost compared

points. It's not a huge boost compared to the M2. And on the M1 Pro, we have double the cores, 16 cores, and 71,000 points, which is okay. It's much more

like uh usable in terms of graphics than the M4. But still guys, if you multiply

the M4. But still guys, if you multiply the eight cores by two and we kind of compare core to core, we'll have more than 90,000 closer to 100,000 points on

the M4 if we had like 16 cores. And it

means that the cores from the M1 to the M4 generations, the GPU core itself, they got more efficient and more powerful. And that is why we're getting

powerful. And that is why we're getting pretty nice boosts with 8 core machine compared to the 16 core. And do you remember guys that the M2 base MacBook

Air had very slow SSD speeds and Maxtag channel had like an entire investigation about it? So here's the comparison of

about it? So here's the comparison of the SSD speeds. For the right we have almost 1,500 on the M2, 1,700 on the M4,

almost the same. And we have 3,700 on the M1 Pro cuz it does have like four NAN chips 128H if I remember correctly.

Let me know in the comments if it is like this. Right here we have two nan

like this. Right here we have two nan chips. So 128 but we have two of those

chips. So 128 but we have two of those 256. But on the M2 we had like one 256

256. But on the M2 we had like one 256 nan chip and that is why it was much slower. So as far as the read goes we

slower. So as far as the read goes we have 1500 on the M2. We have 2800 on the M4 almost double the speed. And we have

5100 on the M1 Pro which is much faster.

And with the M2 Air, it was an issue because we had only eight gigs of RAM in the base version and we had swap like all the time. If you open like five to 10 Chrome tabs and you use like

Lightroom or Final Cut, you'll be having swapped definitely. But on this machine,

swapped definitely. But on this machine, the M4, I didn't have a lot of swap being used and that is why it's not slowing down the machine a lot. And all

in all, the SSDs are a bit better. So if

you even have some swap, it'll do just fine. And here we have the first test.

fine. And here we have the first test.

500 photos raw 24 megapixel export from Lightroom. We have a cold start on the

Lightroom. We have a cold start on the M2 and M4. So the machines are not hot at all like uh the best conditions for them. And here you can see a huge

them. And here you can see a huge difference in numbers between M2 and M4.

And that's because of the unified memory of only 8 GB on the M2 because Lightroom is really hungry for unified memory. And

that is why we have those results. So,

the M2 had 15 minutes, M4 almost 4 minutes, and the M1 Pro 3 minutes and 20 seconds. And the difference between M1

seconds. And the difference between M1 Pro and M4 is not huge at all. But

between the M2 Air with 8 gigs of RAM and the M4 Air with 16 gigs of RAM is just enormous. So, if you are

just enormous. So, if you are considering if you're doing like photo editing or something, I would much rather pick this one than the M2 or any machine with 8 gigs. Just don't pick it

because 16 gigs is a must minimum. But

then I decided to run the same test again straight after the first one on the M4 Air and we had a hot start, let me say, because it was pretty hard to the touch and we had like 5 minutes and

37 seconds. So pretty much slower. So

37 seconds. So pretty much slower. So

this is the like realw world comparison.

If you do a lot of heavy lifting with this machine and then you export 500 photos, you'll get slower results, but still it's a pretty good result in my opinion even compared to the M1 Pro.

Then I decided to export a 10-minute project in 4K 50p to H.26 265 codec HVC and we have a pretty interesting result right here. So the M1 Pro was this

right here. So the M1 Pro was this slowest at 535. Then we have the M2 at 529 within the margin of error and then we have the M4 at 450. And it means that

in the M4 generation we have better encoders and decoders. And this is the first time we get an actual boost in the encoders and decoders in the M lineup.

And then I decided to export a 1 hour 4K clip. It was like more than a thousand

clip. It was like more than a thousand little portions of videos. And this got 36 minutes and 24 seconds on the M4 and 31 minutes on the M1 Pro. A pretty

decent result because I think it thermal throttled a little bit as well. And in

my opinion, it's more than comparable.

And guys, here is the screen recording of me working in Final Cut Pro. We have

the better quality option. And these are the files from the Sony ZV1 or let me say Sony FX3. Exactly the same H.265

codec 4K50. So, a pretty demanding footage to be honest. And each and every clip has a lot of corrections, color correction, lots applied, color wheels, color adjustment layers, slowing down

the footage, etc., etc. And all in all, you can see that it's super smooth. It's

not pre-rendered. As you can see, we have some little dots above the footage.

It's not pre-rendered. Everything is

real time. I wouldn't say it's faster than the M1 Pro, but it's definitely a lot smoother than the M2 MacBook Air.

And all in all, I see like zero complaints about the smoothness of the timeline. So, as you can tell, we have

timeline. So, as you can tell, we have 42% of memory pressure. We don't have anything in swap memory. We also see about 70% usage of the GPU. And the

temperatures are more than fine, about 60° C, which is okay. And the total power used is around 13 to 14 watts, which is just crazy for this good of a

performance. To conclude, guys, I'm very

performance. To conclude, guys, I'm very impressed with the base M4 chip because we have exactly the same in the Mac Mini for $600 and for 600 bucks is just a no-brainer. To be honest, I'm very

no-brainer. To be honest, I'm very satisfied with the performance, with the snappiness. And to me, it's not a real

snappiness. And to me, it's not a real pain to work with this machine compared to this machine. I'll not be comparing the display quality or the speakers, etc. It's not important as for now. Just

considering the M1 Pro and the M4 chips, I would say that they're more or less identical in terms of performance. And

in some instances, like the web browsing, this one is even faster. So,

to me, it's a great like secondary machine, a backup machine, or a travel machine because I simply adore the form factor for traveling. It's such a pain to carry this 2 kg beast in your

travels, in your backpack. My back hurts all the time. But with this, I don't even feel it. Now, previously we had to use the M2 8 gig MacBook Air in our trips. It was much slower and I did feel

trips. It was much slower and I did feel the difference between this machine and the M2 MacBook Air based model. But with

this, I don't feel any regrets, any downgrades compared to the M1 Pro. So,

good job Apple. I really respect that.

So, let me know in the comment section below what do you think of the M4 generation, whether it's an MacBook Air or a MacBook Pro. By the way, you can buy it in the MacBook Pro as well. But

to be honest, I would pick the M4 Pro machine if I were picking the MacBook Pro. So, let me know all of your

Pro. So, let me know all of your thoughts down in the comment section below. And if you did enjoy this video,

below. And if you did enjoy this video, smash the like and subscribe buttons and hit the notifications bell. And right

here, I have a huge guide about how to pick a Mac for your particular tasks in 2025. See you there, guys. Take care.

2025. See you there, guys. Take care.

Bye.