Apple has just officially released the MacBook Air M4 models with 13-inch and 15-inch sizes in the US and many other major markets.
Soon after getting their hands on the MacBook Air M4 models, many people were eager to explore the improvements the company had made. According to information from a YouTuber named Vadim Yuryev (owner of the Max Tech channel), the most noticeable difference between the MacBook Air M4 and the previous M3 version is not only the chip upgrade but also the way the machine performs when handling heavy workloads.
In a test with Lightroom Classic, Vadim Yuryev found that the MacBook Air M4 mainly used the six energy-efficient cores, while the performance cores were almost unused. This is surprising because Adobe's photo editing software is often very CPU-intensive, and users often expect the performance cores to handle these tasks.
While there has been no official explanation from Apple for using only the low-power cores, this behavior of the MacBook Air M4 is completely different from the M3, which only uses the performance cores in the same situation. It is possible that Apple designed the M4's Neural Engine to recognize applications that can be processed by the low-power cores without sacrificing performance or user experience.
For now, Vadim Yuryev only provided two images showing the behavior of the two chips under load, so it's difficult to accurately assess the performance of Lightroom Classic when using only the power-saving cores. However, if the application works well, this approach should bring many benefits such as extended battery life and improved thermal performance, which is especially important since the MacBook Air M4 does not have an active cooling solution and relies solely on a large heatsink.
