I wanted to follow up on 2020 MBA performance. Geekbench indicates single-core scores of 1070/1120 and multicore scores of 2724/2877 for the i5/i7 configs, respectively. I find +5% performance bonus totally underwhelming for a $150 BTO option. While $100 for the i5 over the base i3 seems like a no-brainer, I doubt I would recommend the i7 to anyone.
To make matters worse it appears the MBA despite having excellent CPU options, simply does not allow truly exploiting them due to its limited cooling and thermal envelope. I watched 2 Youtube videos that compared the 2020 MBA i5 to the 2019 13" i5 MBP. While the MBA in general does great, it’s clear that under sustained high load it quickly loses ground to the otherwise inferior 2019 i5 due to throttling. Also, lots of fan noise was reported. Links below.
I still think this MBA is a great choice for somebody like my wife, but I’ll be suggesting she stick with the i5 and put those $150 to use for software instead (or larger SSD) where it actually would do her some good.