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Here's a review of a Lenovo's new thin and light Thinkpad X1 Yoga with Intel's current gen flagship laptop CPU: >Unfortunately, the laptop got uncomfortably ho

Here's a review of a Lenovo's new thin and light Thinkpad X1 Yoga with Intel's current gen flagship laptop CPU: >Unfortunately, the laptop got uncomfortably hot in its Best performance mode during testing, even with light workloads. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/07/review-lenovos-thinkpad-x1-yoga-gen-7-looks-good-but-feels-warm/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/07/review-lenovos-think... This is a laptop with two fans that cannot be used comfortably, even for light workloads, without being set to throttle all the time. A fanless laptop that throttles under sustained load is perfectly normal. A laptop with active cooling that is too hot for light use until you configure it to always throttle is not.

MrFoof 4y ago
In the case of the Intel i7-1280P in the Lenovo, it's not entirely surprising that it heats up. Under Tau it can draw 64W if allowed to, per Intel ARK. That's on par with a mid-range AMD desktop CPU -- a Ryzen 5600X pulls 67.2W flat out. Apple's M1 Max capped at about 39.7W, and the M1 Pro was around 33.6W. So the M2 getting hot isn't surprising since it's likely in the 25-30W range. I agree that 25+ watts is a lot of heat to dissipate given the design of its thermal solution.
TowerTall 4y ago
I have the previous version (gen 6) and I can confirm the heat problems. You can not watch a 4k movie and charge it at the same time. Soon after you plug in the charging cable the upper left corner of the computer will be so hot that you (almost) can burn yourself. When that happen the computer will slow down to the point where it is not really usable. At this point you can turn the computer upside down to allow the back side of the computer to cool down (get some air). After a few minutes it has cooled down sufficient to that you can continue using the computer and charge it at the same time, but shortly after you will have to repeat this. If think the backside of metal case get so hot that not enough hot air cannot escape. If you can place the computer in any position that allows air to flow over the back side of the case everything works, but placed on a table or similar you have severe thermal issues if you charge it at the same time at the same time you do anything mildly CPU intensive.

MrFoof 4y ago

In the case of the Intel i7-1280P in the Lenovo, it's not entirely surprising that it heats up. Under Tau it can draw 64W if allowed to, per Intel ARK. That's on par with a mid-range AMD desktop CPU -- a Ryzen 5600X pulls 67.2W flat out. Apple's M1 Max capped at about 39.7W, and the M1 Pro was around 33.6W. So the M2 getting hot isn't surprising since it's likely in the 25-30W range. I agree that 25+ watts is a lot of heat to dissipate given the design of its thermal solution.

TowerTall 4y ago

I have the previous version (gen 6) and I can confirm the heat problems. You can not watch a 4k movie and charge it at the same time. Soon after you plug in the charging cable the upper left corner of the computer will be so hot that you (almost) can burn yourself. When that happen the computer will slow down to the point where it is not really usable. At this point you can turn the computer upside down to allow the back side of the computer to cool down (get some air). After a few minutes it has cooled down sufficient to that you can continue using the computer and charge it at the same time, but shortly after you will have to repeat this. If think the backside of metal case get so hot that not enough hot air cannot escape. If you can place the computer in any position that allows air to flow over the back side of the case everything works, but placed on a table or similar you have severe thermal issues if you charge it at the same time at the same time you do anything mildly CPU intensive.