Day after Apple refreshed the MacBook Air lineup with the M3 chip, the first benchmarks for Apple’s M3 MacBook Air surfaced online, suggesting a significant performance improvement over the M2 MacBook Air.
Folks over at MySmartPrice managed to unearth the benchmarks of the MacBook Air with the M3 chip on the Geekbench 6 database. The device scored 3,157 points in single-core testing and 12,020 points in multi-core testing in the benchmark results.
In contrast, the 15-inch MacBook Air with M2 listed on the Geekbench chart achieved 2,595 in the single-core test and 9,744 in the multi-core test. This suggests that the all-new M3 MacBook Air comes with about a 20% increase in performance over the M2 MacBook Air.
While there is a chance that these scores might be fake, the results seem to be within the M3 chip’s acceptable range. According to the Geekbench chart, the 14-inch MacBook Pro with M3 has a single-core score of 3,085 and a multi-core score of 11,561, which suggests that these results could be accurate.
However, it’s important to keep in mind that the primary listings for the other models are based on averages, while this is only one benchmark result for the M3 MacBook Air. The outcome might be accurate, but it might have been an ideal result, and with more submissions, it might change and could be close to the MacBook Pro result.
Apple started taking pre-orders for the new MacBook Air on the launch day, March 4, and the first customer deliveries and in-store availability are scheduled for March 8. In the US, the new MacBook Air model with M3 chip starts at $1,099, or $999 for students, while the 13-inch MacBook Air with the M2 chip from the previous generation is still available for $999, or $899 for students.