Apple’s latest Apple Silicon chips are so power-efficient that even thin, fanless laptops can feel fast for everyday work. The catch is what happens when you push them hard for a long time. New testing shows the M5 can lose a big chunk of gaming performance in a passively cooled laptop simply because it can’t hold higher power levels without running into heat limits.
A recent deep-dive from YouTuber Geekerwan compared the M5 in a fanless design versus an actively cooled one, and the takeaway is clear: the fan isn’t about short bursts of speed, it’s about sustained performance. With active cooling, the M5 has much more thermal headroom and can run at over twice the power limit of the passively cooled version in demanding games.
Cyberpunk 2077 is a perfect example because it’s still one of the most punishing AAA titles you can throw at a machine. In the test, the M5 in the MacBook Air was limited to about 9W, while the actively cooled MacBook Pro version could sustain around 20W. That difference alone translated into a noticeable gap in frame rates.
Here’s how Cyberpunk 2077 performed at 1,920 x 1,200 on low settings, with upscaling disabled:
– Actively cooled M5: 51 FPS average, 41 FPS 1% lows
– Passively cooled M5: 36 FPS average, 30 FPS 1% lows
– Passively cooled M4: 27 FPS average, 22 FPS 1% lows
Turn on MetalFX upscaling (Quality), and both machines improve, but the cooling gap remains:
– Actively cooled M5: 76 FPS average, 62 FPS 1% lows
– Passively cooled M5: 54 FPS average, 44 FPS 1% lows
– Passively cooled M4: 39 FPS average, 32 FPS 1% lows
In other words, the M5 MacBook Air can start out looking surprisingly strong, but it may gradually throttle as temperatures climb, leading to drops that can reach around 40% depending on the game and settings. Similar behavior was observed in titles like Baldur’s Gate 3 and Elden Ring: performance can begin close to the actively cooled system, then slide downward as the chip hits its thermal ceiling.
None of this means the M5 MacBook Air is “bad” or unusable for demanding work. It can still handle modern games and other intensive tasks, but expectations should match the design. Fanless Macs prioritize silence and portability, while actively cooled models are built to keep performance high for long sessions like extended gaming, rendering, or other sustained workloads.
There is good news for anyone upgrading: even with the same passive cooling approach, the M5 generation shows a meaningful improvement over the fanless M4 in gaming results, delivering a solid jump in frame rates across the board. Ultimately, the decision comes down to what you do most: if your workload is bursty and you value a silent, thin laptop, the M5 MacBook Air makes sense. If you want the strongest sustained performance from the M5, active cooling in the MacBook Pro remains the advantage that matters.
