MacBook Air is a no-go for heavy 3D work.

No. At least not if you plan to do anything beyond basic modeling or simple renders. The integrated GPU (even the M2 or M3) just doesn’t have the thermal headroom or raw performance for real Blender use.

The MacBook Air is passively cooled. Under sustained load — like rendering a frame or navigating a complex scene — it will throttle hard. The fans never kick in because there are none. Performance will drop to keep the chip from melting. You’ll be waiting minutes for previews that take seconds on a proper GPU.

Does it run? Sure. Blender will launch. You can model a low-poly object. But add textures, subdivision, lighting, or any kind of animation and the experience goes from “a bit slow” to “frustrating.” The viewport will lag, Eevee and Cycles will feel sluggish, and anything real-time (like sculpting or texture painting) will stutter.

If you’re learning the interface or doing very light work, fine. But if 3D is a hobby you plan to take seriously, buy a MacBook Pro with at least the M3 Pro chip, or better yet, a dedicated laptop with an NVIDIA GPU. Blender likes CUDA cores and VRAM. The Air has neither.

Future You will thank you.