4 ms·
It's the heatsink. And Apple isn't the only offender. All major manufacturers use terrible cooling systems, even on thick workstation class laptops. Their testi
by bserge 6y ago
It's the heatsink. And Apple isn't the only offender. All major manufacturers use terrible cooling systems, even on thick workstation class laptops. Their testing is seriously flawed, they design the heatsink for "normal workload" which means jack shit.
Everyone's got different uses for their machines, so just test the heatsink at maximum load/TDP for several hours at least, make sure it doesn't overheat. Is that too much to ask?
And if you design your laptops to be thin and light, don't shove a 6 core 45W processor in it... just don't. It will perform slower than a 4 core 35W chip, so what's the point? Having it on the spec sheet is not worth the negative feedback from buyers.
Apple went the other way with the M1, it doesn't overheat because it just uses much less power, while having the same performance. Really impressive.
You can fix the overheating problem by buying some good thermal paste and applying it yourself and/or by using software like Throttlestop to limit the maximum TDP (and even undervolt it to claw back some of that performance) and NotebookFanControl for the fans. Not sure if there are alternatives for the MacBook, though.
- reader_mode 6y agoYou can't under-volt on latest machines (mine included). I need to limit TDP to get the machine usable. I've thought about opening it up and reapplying paste but I don't want to risk bricking my work device - I don't have the time to deal with it. I will have a few weeks off soon so might consider it if the expected gains are significant but from what I saw back when I looked into it (this[1] mostly) it's not worth it. https://www.reddit.com/r/macbookpro/comments/96wwyf/so_i_replaced_the_thermal_compound_on_my_mbp_2018/ https://www.reddit.com/r/macbookpro/comments/96wwyf/so_i_rep...
- AmVess 6y agoIt may drop the temp a few C or delay throttling, but small heatsinks and tiny fans can only dump so much heat out of the chassis. I did all kinds of things to my XPS, but the largest gain came from undervolting and it still sounded like a leafblower when it was being worked moderately hard. My M1 Macbook on the other hand, is dead quiet on top of absolutely destroying the XPS in CPU performance while having vastly superior battery life. I don't have to run anything out of spec to keep it from cooking itself.
- reader_mode 6y agoYeah no doubt M1s are amazing, I'm kind of sad Apple is the only one with it because Apple isn't big on providing options. My ideal form factor is a Yoga or Surface Pro style - and iOS is not a real option.
- bserge 6y agoThat's unfortunate. Is it because of Plundervolt? Intel's answer to that was basically "lol, just disable manual voltage control", even older machines got BIOS updates disabling it, which made a tiny number of people angry.
- fomine3 6y agoVAIO argue that they design great cooling system (with TruePerformance brand) so their laptop with lower TDP CPU performs better than other manufacturer's higher TDP laptop with crap cooling. It looks interesting because it's also portable, but it's expensive due to VAIO's selling scale.
- bserge 6y agoThat looks like Dell's Dynamic Tuning, which also dynamically adjusts performance. Except Dell still sells models with higher end processors that their cooling simply can't handle. https://www.notebookcheck.net/Dell-Dynamic-Power-Policy-A-look-into-how-Dell-manages-thermal-and-power-policies-across-its-XPS-lineup.247462.0.html https://www.notebookcheck.net/Dell-Dynamic-Power-Policy-A-lo... The result is hilarious: Dell's own machines with a lower end processor have equal or higher performance compared to the same models with higher end CPUs. This is actually part Intel's fault, as with TurboBoost their processors with the same core count have nearly the same performance, so it makes little sense to pay $100-200 more for a "higher end" CPU unless it has more cores.