8 ms·

Thermal Pad ‘Mod’ Makes M2 MacBook Air Faster Than 13″ M2 Pro

204 points by gnicholas 4y ago

anewpersonality 4y ago
Anyone else feel that Apple has completely screwed the pooch on the marketing here? I feel this is just going to end up in a mess of confusion of M1/M2/M3 with superfluous adjectives.
- whichdan 4y ago
  The marketing seems pretty straightforward? M1/M2/M3 (and their sub-variants) and fan/no-fan are the two performance aspects, and then you just decide whether you want a 13"/14"/16".
  - GoOnThenDoTell 4y ago
    and new colors. Holding out for a black 16”
    - mcphage 4y ago
      I had a black 13" MacBook back when those came out. I loved that machine, it was the perfect size and looked so cool. Then someone broke into my car after work and stole it. I'm still bitter about that.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - wlesieutre 4y ago
    The 13" is substantially different from the 14"/16" though. It's a carryover of the previous design (bigger bezels, no notch) and has the lower tier processor with 4+4 performance and efficiency CPU core split. The 14" and 16" have a 8+2 CPU cores instead. EDIT: other differences include mini-LED backlight, 120 hz refresh rate, 2x the base RAM, 4x the maximum RAM, function keys (instead of touch bar), support for 3 external displays (instead of 1), HDMI, SD card slot, magsafe, and faster charging Much more of a choice to make than "do I want a fan or not" if you include the 14" and 16". That's pretty accurate between the Air and 13" Pro though.
    - varenc 4y ago
      I think the grandparent commenter is illustrating how confusing this is. To break it down, here are the chips and laptop models: - M1 Macbook Air (old) - M1 Macbook Pro 13" (old) - M1 Pro Macbook Pro 14" (or M1 Max) - M1 Pro Macbook Pro 16" (or M1 Max) - M2 Macbook Air - M2 Macbook Pro 13" Note that the "Pro" modifier can be applied to both the laptop and to the chip. An M1 Pro or M1 Max is significantly more powerful than an M1 and still more powerful than an M2. An M2 Pro or M2 Max _chip_ doesn't yet exist, though the linked article's title confusingly implies it does. The thermal pad mod just makes the M2 Macbook Air perform as well as the M2 Macbook Pro 13", but it doesn't make it perform as well as the M1 Pro/Max Macbook Pro 14"/16". Benchmarks: https://browser.geekbench.com/mac-benchmarks https://browser.geekbench.com/mac-benchmarks To summarize: M1 Max > M1 Pro > M2 > M1 pretty confusing
      - tedunangst 4y ago
        When has it not been the case that the top spec CPU of the previous generation is faster than the lowest spec next generation? Are you also totally confused by the fact that a threadripper 3990x is faster than a ryzen 5500?
        varenc 4y ago
        I'm not confused.. but as demonstrated in this thread, confusion exists amongst users. Also your example sort of made my point. The names "threadripper 3990x" and "ryzen 5500" are pretty meaningless by themselves and from those names alone there's no implied relationship about which one is newer/faster. This is a good thing! However, "M2 Macbook Pro" vs "M1 Pro Macbook Pro" could be naively interpreted incorrectly.
      - wlesieutre 4y ago
        At least with M2s coming out we'll get away from the problem where "M1 Max" sounds identical to "M1 Macs"
  - lynndotpy 4y ago
    It's not straightforward to me personally. Look at the photos on the Apple store, I don't even know what these laptops look like, let alone which one to pick. Add in the SSD issues and the info-sparse spec list and I really can't tell and the whole S/Pro/Plus/Max/?? situation. I wish they were clearer
    - eyelidlessness 4y ago
      > Look at the photos on the Apple store, I don't even know what these laptops look like Browsing on my phone, apple.com > store > Mac[1], I see a carousel showing the front of each Mac model (oddly showing the older MacBook Air first, I’d guess because it’s the least expensive?). Tapping each model, a view for that model shows up with a carousel showing additional angles/perspectives. Granted this isn’t the most obvious navigation from the home page, and the individual products’ landing/marketing pages too frequently bury useful images. > Add in the SSD issues and the info-sparse spec list and I really can't tell and the whole S/Pro/Plus/Max/?? situation. I wish they were clearer If I go to Compare Mac Models[2], the spec comparisons don’t seem especially sparse. Below the fold details get more specific about the chips. Granted they’re mostly differentiated by core counts (and, oddly, memory bandwidth). The page also enumerates all configuration options for each model. I do agree they should be more upfront about SSD performance by configuration. 1: https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac 2: https://www.apple.com/mac/compare/ https://www.apple.com/mac/compare/
      - lynndotpy 4y ago
        Oh wow, I didn't even find the first page when on the apple site. Thanks for this! I was navigating Apple > Mac > Buy. I was looking at the pages for the specific laptops (which, as far as I can tell, only have the front-facing photos.) The spec situation is still confusing (took me awhile to figure out the $1200 MBAs and the $1500 MBAs were two configs of the same model; "Select" essentially takes you to the same place, which was very confusing.)
  - gnicholas 4y ago
    I think the issue is that there is some overlap in performance between a fanless M2 and a fanned (is that a word?) M1. Also, Apple doesn't exactly advertise the fan status of each laptop. Currently, only the MBPs have fans, but in the past MBAs had fans also. But most people don't know the fan status of Apple's lineup, so this isn't really part of their marketing messaging.
- joshstrange 4y ago
  I mean you can fault them for "Max < Ultra" but once you get over that the naming is about 100000x easier than anything out of Intel/AMD/Qualcomm. M1: (base), Pro, Max, Ultra, <maybe Mac Pro chip?> M2: (base), Pro, <one would assume we will ge Max/Ultra as well> Compared to the competition (or rather, other chip makers since Apple doesn't sell it's chips) this seems way easier.
  - adrianmsmith 4y ago
    I think it doesn't help that the computers are called Pro as well, so you could have a MacBook Pro with M1 Max, etc. I mean there was another comment on this thread that had to clarify that when they said "M2 Pro" they had meant the "MacBook Pro with M2" not a future "M2 Pro" chip.
    - beckingz 4y ago
      MacBook Pro with M1 Pro as opposed to the MacBook with M1 Pro. Definitely no confusion coming down the pipe.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- GeekyBear 4y ago
  As opposed to the Intel/AMD naming scheme of random strings of letters and numbers?
  - 988747 4y ago
    Intel: i3/i5/i7/i9 AMD Ryzen: 3/5/7/9 Looks pretty straightforward to me: higher number - better processor. Now between M1 Pro, Max and Ultra how can you tell which one is supposed to be better ? :)
    - GeekyBear 4y ago
      >Looks pretty straightforward to me Really? What's the difference between a Core i7-10710U and a Core i7-10510U? How can you tell that the Ryzen 7 5800U has Zen 3 cores while the Ryzen 7 5700U only has last gen Zen 2 cores from the name?
gnicholas 4y ago
Assuming these results are legit (as they seem to be), did Apple just not do this because it cuts the performance differential between the M2 MBA and the M1 MBPs too much?
- Scaevolus 4y ago
  Many of these Macbook thermal mods use the case more aggressively as a heatsink, and can end up making the enclosure hot enough to burn you if used as a laptop.
  - generj 4y ago
    They probably could add some case temperature sensors and throttle once the case gets hot enough. Would still gain a lot of performance; outside of benchmarks most people don’t run their computers hard enough to need full boost for minutes at a time.
    - gambiting 4y ago
      Then you'd just get another mod disconnecting the sensor, because of course apple is hiding performance from you /s
  - asdff 4y ago
    To be fair the macbook already gets too hot to handle under load as it is
- Asdrubalini 4y ago
  They probably didn't want the aluminium case to get too hot.
  - smoldesu 4y ago
    FWIW, the default scaling settings have no problem letting the M2 Macbook Air hit 80-90 Celsius by default, it will just heavily start throttling the performance cores to prevent overheating, which better cooling helps mitigate.
Kirby64 4y ago
This sounds like it's the same thing as the thermal pad mod for the M1 MacBook Air. On the upside, you get better sustained performance and it lasts nearly just as long as the Pro, from what I recall. On the downside, it elevated the temperature of the backside aluminum to a high enough temperature to be able to cause burns (something like 80-90C). Not a huge issue if you always use it on a table or something, but if you truly use it as a 'lap' top, it'll be quite unpleasant.
- yumraj 4y ago
  > if you truly use it as a 'lap' top, it'll be quite unpleasant. Sounds not too different from Intel MBP's. I could never use my MBP as a "lap" top due to how hot it got.
- macinjosh 4y ago
  I kid you not, in the early Intel MacBookPro days the Genius Bar told me that my extremely hot MBP that I could not use on my lap due to the heat was not in fact a laptop computer but a notebook computer and by using it on my lap I was essentially holding it wrong. This was in or around 2005 IIRC.
  - kube-system 4y ago
    This isn’t just a Mac thing, lawyers on all sides of the PC market highly suggested the terminology “notebook” over laptop for the longest time.
    - SenHeng 4y ago
      Unsure if related, laptops are called Note-PCs here in Japan. Asking anyone about a 'laptop' will just get you blank stares.
  - eastbound 4y ago
    The original Intel i7 in my HP laptop in 2010 had a working temperature up to 102°C. The fan noise was insane. Never bought another PC after that.
adolph 4y ago
The marginal improvement over the Pro may have to do with the Pro's older/slower storage in addition to the Pro throttling until fan start.
- gnicholas 4y ago
  Isn't the slow storage issue only on the base (256GB) model? I don't know which model these benchmarks use, but it would be surprising — and very dishonest — if he was using an MBP with slower storage and then chose an MBA with fast storage (the base model MBA has the same issue as the MBP).
999900000999 4y ago
Maybe it's just because I bought a couple of computers back in 2020, but everything I'm seeing from Apple makes me want to wait. Whenever they release a sub 1k laptop with 512 GB we can talk. I've had phenomenal fun on an laptop running Fedora and Deepin.
- deanc 4y ago
  Yeah good luck with that considering inflation and chip shortages.
  - 999900000999 4y ago
    I mean my fedora laptop has a terabyte hard drive. Whenever I have an urge to use macOS applications, I have the Mac mini at home.
- gnicholas 4y ago
  M1 MBA with academic discount?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
ricardobeat 4y ago
Note that when the article says this outperforms the "M2 Pro", they mean the Macbook Pro with a M2 chip, not the actual M2 Pro (sibling of the M2 Max) chips which have yet to be released.
- moolcool 4y ago
  Apple had a blank slate for a new naming scheme and already botched it
  - masklinn 4y ago
    I can't say I had any expectation given the mess that is the iDevices naming schemes (especially the ipads), but the Apple Silicon naming really is mind-boggingly bad. It's like the names are picked by a 12 years old with sub-par naming abilities.
    - yonig 4y ago
      Apple TV (hardware), Apple TV (app), and Apple TV+ (premium subscription). It’s like they try and keep it so simple it makes you feel stupid
- randyrand 4y ago
  This really illustrates how poorly the chips were named. ‘Pro’ is overused to the point of ambiguity.
  - Xeoncross 4y ago
    So is the M2 Pro better than the M1 Max? Of course not, it's clear as mud.
    - antifa 4y ago
      M2 Incissor is about on par with the M1 Omega.
    - 4y ago
macNchz 4y ago
I did this to my long suffering 2015 MacBook Pro, which always had significant thermal problems. It worked pretty well to keep it from overheating, but it’s no longer safe to use the computer on my actual lap as the bottom gets skin-burningly hot in minutes.
- asdff 4y ago
  Rip off the thick cardboard backing of a notebook and tape it under there with some pennies to form a little bit of an airgap. Boom. Free slim profile laptop stand that you can keep on all the time. Who looks at the bottom of the computer anyhow?
carlycue 4y ago
I find the overheating controversy of the fanless M2 MacBook Air to be bizarre. If you open up the M2 MacBook Air and take a look inside, it looks almost identical to the iPad Pro. The M2 MacBook Air is clearly designed to be the clamshell version of the iPad Pro. It's not meant to do heavy workloads for long periods of time. Apple wants you to upgrade to the thicker and heavier 14" and 16" MacBook Pro's with fans for those kind of heavy tasks.
- nsxwolf 4y ago
  Do most people understand this, though? I would have assumed it was chiefly about a difference in size - that the main tradeoff would be reduced screen real estate in exchange for a lighter weight and smaller form factor.
  - rejectfinite 4y ago
    That much more price just for 2" more? No way.
  - _aavaa_ 4y ago
    Most people idk. But most people are not the ones for whom the lack of a fan would ever be a problem. Most people do not run long renders, or compile lots of code. Most people browse the web, look at photos, and send emails/messages.
  - tshaddox 4y ago
    I suspect that anyone with even a passing awareness of the Mac product line and the term "performance benchmarks" would know that performance has long been one of the key distinguishing characteristics of the Air and Pro lines.
- orangecat 4y ago
  Sure, although there's a bit of dissonance between "this is a great laptop because it uses the M2 which is our fastest CPU ever" and "you shouldn't be complaining about performance on an entry level system".
ajaimk 4y ago
Apple does a lot of research on comfortable lap temperature. This guaranteed to burn someones lap.
CoolGuySteve 4y ago
I feel like Apple lost a golden opportunity to add these pads themselves but then thermal throttle this machine in the firmware UNLESS you purchase a $199 magnetic heatsink/docking station for the underside. Seems like something they would have done if only they had thought of the idea.
- Tagbert 4y ago
  they could have done it if they thought that there was a problem for the people buying the Air. If those people are frequently doing 8K Final Cut Pro renders, then this kind of modification might make sense. If the Air buyers are browsing the web, doing photo edits, and doing basic programming, there is no need because those tasks don't push it into the heat limits. Of course, there is the problem that those mods cause the case to heat up past the limits that EU safety regulations allow, but they just don't need to sell it in the EU then?
  - SR2Z 4y ago
    This seems like such low-hanging fruit, though. It wouldn't take very much at all - just a single extra NFC chip, and some code to allow the chip to run at full TDP while plugged in + on an approved cooling pad. The benefits are HUGE - plenty of people want small laptops that they can use on the go, but most laptops spend most of their time docked.
    - Tagbert 4y ago
      How huge are the benefits, really? This doesn't affect normal operations. The laptop stays cool during most of the things you would do on a laptop. The only time it hits the thermal limits are during large batch operations involving both the cpu and the gpu. Even then, it still does the work but has to slow down by only 10-20%.
GeekyBear 4y ago
LTT Tech literally did a video with an identical thermal pad mod a year and a half ago with the M1 Air. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghDvyItIHTY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghDvyItIHTY TLDR - Adding the thermal pads wouldn't pass regulatory muster.
- cercatrova 4y ago
  Linus Tech Tips Tech
roflchoppa 4y ago
I’ve been playing COD Warzone on my 2018 MPB 15”, I kept getting stuck at 17-30 FPS, so I slapped a big ol fan on the back of the computer to help circulate the air around it, and on the back cover. Solid 60 FPS now. Should be sufficient for a while, thermal throttling is a real thing.
- vuln 4y ago
  Pics of the setup? Thanks!
- rejectfinite 4y ago
  Just buy a PC desktop or play on console... jesus...
  - imbnwa 4y ago
    On the one hand I applaud such bricolage, but yeah I'm good with my PS5
  - roflchoppa 4y ago
    Why? MPB works fine for the game. Why waste money?
- klelatti 4y ago
  This reminds me of an incident a long time ago when we had issues with Compaq 386’s overheating. I came back from holiday to be told that they had solved it by adding a bigger fan. When I finally saw the offending machines they had their covers off and 15’ office fans pointing down onto the motherboard. Did the job though.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- asdff 4y ago
  I had an xbox 360 that would always overheat and red ring itself. Eventually I realized the window fan I owned had almost the same curve angle as the 360 case. I built a little stand out of some books to hold it flat upright with the air blowing straight up, with the xbox laid horizontally on top of it. Air was just dumping through the vents in the case and that xbox never red ringed again. Wasn't designed for it but it worked better than the manufactured solution evidently.
bogdanu 4y ago
Until Apple decides to lower their prices for the Air M2, I'll wait with my upgrade from M1. I own an Air M1 with 8GB and I was thinking to buy the newer version until I saw the pricing. Heck, the difference between the M1 with 16GB RAM and 512 GB storage and a M1 14" MPB with the same amount of RAM and storage is around 60 euros (from a local reseller). I haven't bought the MBP PRO because I find it too heavy for my personal usage (I also have a company MBP 16" Intel that will be replaced next month with an M1 Max version).
AaronFriel 4y ago
There's a very good reason the bottom panel isn't part of the cooling system, as a 70C panel sitting on one's lap could be indicated in infertility, long before it causes any burns or other obvious discomfort. If the Air had a Surface Book like design where the heat could radiate behind the display, this would be a different affair. It doesn't, so that heat will go to your legs and what's between them. Beyond just being uncomfortable, this would be a liability and press issue that no one at any laptop company wants to deal with. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0015028210026890 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00150...
- Xeoncross 4y ago
  So someone who is able to install custom heatsinks on an expensive electronic is also going to be rendering long professional videos (to get it hot) and keep that +150F degree laptop on their lap long enough to cook their goods? That sounds a little far fetched.
  - kube-system 4y ago
    The person you are replying to is explaining why Apple doesn't do it. They didn't say anything about third party modifications. Someone who modifies their own laptop is not going to sue themselves over it, so that concern obviously doesn't apply to that scenario :)
- BizarroLand 4y ago
  They make very inexpensive laptop fan pads that would completely prevent that from ever happening and add additional cooling to the laptop.
- gnicholas 4y ago
  Do you mean permanent infertility, or just for the sperm that are currently present? I have to imagine it's the latter, which is not a big deal for anyone not looking to conceive. If there were persistent effects (even short of full infertility), that could be a much more serious issue.
Havoc 4y ago
Surely that has to be intentional segmentation? Seems a bit improbable that a company capable of excellent engineering choices forgets about the obvious - measure temp (100+) and realize hmmm maybe we need to disperse that bit better with this easy solution
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- _aavaa_ 4y ago
  Segmentation in the sense that: this laptop is not designed for the workloads that produce 100+ temps. That's not an oversight, that's an engineering tradeoff to lower the weight and thickness for the workloads that it is designed for: day-to-day usage by the average person (i.e. no video render, no big project compiling).
  - Havoc 4y ago
    >that's an engineering tradeoff to lower the weight and thickness huh? This mod doesn't seem to change thickness at all and 3% weight gain for a gigantic jump in performance under load barely counts as a trade-off....more like a no-brainer.
    - dijit 4y ago
      except for the inevitable "this laptop is uncomfortable to use" "this laptop causes infertility" etc; etc; If you want sustained performance (greater than 5 minutes of sustained load) then just don't get this laptop. For bursty workloads (as is standard for ultraportables) it's perfectly fine, you'll never even notice there was a thermal cut-off.
    - _aavaa_ 4y ago
      As others have mention in the comments here, it’s not about thickness of the pads it’s about the new surface temperature of the chassis. It gets too hot to be at all comfortable. If you need sustained workloads, get the laptop designed for sustained workloads.
yieldcrv 4y ago
so if you add thermal pads to the Macbook Pro with the M2? its very confusing that this article is actually about two devices with the same chipset, the Macbook air and Macbook pro. It seemed like they were referring to a different unreleased superior chip: the M2 Pro
CalChris 4y ago
I wonder if a Mac repair shop would do this mod, perhaps if I sourced the thermal pad myself.
- rowanG077 4y ago
  Honestly it's just removing the screws in the back. Adding them and closing it up.
Danborg 4y ago
Can’t you just buy one of those laptop stands with a fan integrated into it for cooling and accomplish something similar?
- jjcm 4y ago
  I suspect no, as if you look at ifixit's teardown they show there's actually a thermal shield in place, likely to prevent your lap from being exposed to the higher temps: https://youtu.be/NjP-aAhHhnE?t=122 https://youtu.be/NjP-aAhHhnE?t=122
elif 4y ago
The elegance of the fix makes me wonder if the original design had a thermal pad in that location, but a lawyer decided they could avoid more liability by crippling the CPU speed instead of burning laps.
- lawkwok 4y ago
  I mean they could technically run all their chips even hotter for more performance but it’s a trade off. Apple probably wants to make their products feel like magic, meaning no noise, fans, or heat-—like the iPad.
- saddlerustle 4y ago
  Various product safety standards and some states' regulations requires the surface temperature of devices not exceed ~50°C
zer0zzz 4y ago
How is it faster than the m2 with a fan? Does using the case as a heat sink dissipate more heat or is the m2 in the air binned more aggressively?
kernal 4y ago
Now add active cooling and see how much higher the benchmarks are.
hyperbovine 4y ago
Does it void AppleCare?
- 93po 4y ago
  If you remove it before servicing and don't leave any traces of it, it shouldn't.
- Kimcha 4y ago
  I saw a post on Reddit where a user was denied service, because the thermal pad left a spot that looked like it could be liquid. Apple refused to service it due to liquid damage. It was probably the glue residue. So perhaps it would be better to stick it to the lid and not the heat sink.
squarefoot 4y ago
Note that thermal pads, although being a lot better than nothing, perform worse than thermal paste or thermal glue. If space allows it, gluing a piece of copper or aluminium on each chip would increase the chip's thermal mass significantly, slowing down the speed at which the chips changes its temperature. Then one could add a thinner thermal pad to achieve even better thermal transfer with the laptop plate. https://www.ebay.com/itm/203942669848 https://www.ebay.com/itm/203942669848 https://www.ebay.com/itm/195034139133 https://www.ebay.com/itm/195034139133 (no relation with the sellers, just search for "copper heatsink" and "thermal glue") Before using the glue, a test with normal paste is advised so that one can find the right heatsink/pad thickness.
- 93po 4y ago
  Say goodbye to any warranty and possibly repairability gluing a sheet of copper inside your macbook though.
ProllyInfamous 4y ago
The reason these are called "portable computers" and not "laptops" has to do with the electromagnetic radiation generated from onboard wireless COMMs (e.g. WiFi). As this type of machine should already NOT be sitting atop a human, I do not see an issue with directing the excess heat to the exterior shell/heatsink.
- 93po 4y ago
  Do you have a reputable source that the levels of EM radiation from laptops is harmful when placed on laps but not when placed on desks in front of you?
barkingcat 4y ago
People never realize that you can do the thermal pad "mod" to the 13" M2 Pro as well, to make it reach beyond the speeds of the M2 air to get closer to the 14" speeds. And you can do the mod to the 14/16" laptops as well - basically a thermal version of an overclock. The thermal pad mod was applied on the 2019 Macbook Pro 16" intel model to great success before M1 was even a thing.
- rowanG077 4y ago
  Did you do that mod on the 14 inch? I tried to search on google and couldn't find anything.
derefr 4y ago
To be clear, the real reason Apple don't do this themselves, is because there are legal regulations preventing them from selling products that are any hotter to the touch. According to the IEC, metal contact surfaces on machines are considered unsafe above 55.5C. And unmodded, Apple's notebooks already scrape up against that upper limit. With the mod, they go quite a bit over it — well into "causes pain to touch" territory. (See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghDvyItIHTY&t=278s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghDvyItIHTY&t=278s)
- rektide 4y ago
  The stupid & obvious & I-wish-us-idiot-laymen-could-claim-prior-art (not-that-that-helps-anymore) answer is to put a temp sensor on the case too. Just not thermally bridging is a fine stupid answer. But if someone puts their laptop onto a laptop cooling stand, heck yes it would be fantastic to reap a 2x+ benefit. This is, in my view, as much a product choice to make sure Air does not encroach upon better territory as anything else. Companies like Intel & AMD have been way behind comparatively to Apple in mobile chips, but the old-giant competitors at least typically allow a well cooled chip to work better, which, in my view, is a product not technical decision made here: the decision to use less cooling. That said, there is some (I'd wager modest) benefit to using the case as a thermal insulator rather than dissipator for the average user.
  - skavi 4y ago
    Dell’s XPS series has had a Gore-Tex insulation layer on the inside of the chassis for some time.
mrtweetyhack 4y ago
londons_explore 4y ago
For anyone wondering why Apple didn't ship it out of the factory like this.... There are laws and regulations in most of the world about the maximum surface temperature that devices may hit during operation. They usually vary by material. Since the MacBook is metal, the maximum surface temperature usually can't be above 45C or so to avoid burning the user. I'd bet with this mod, the surface of the laptop gets much hotter than that, so it would be illegal to sell.

204 points by gnicholas 4y ago

Anyone else feel that Apple has completely screwed the pooch on the marketing here? I feel this is just going to end up in a mess of confusion of M1/M2/M3 with superfluous adjectives.

whichdan 4y ago
The marketing seems pretty straightforward? M1/M2/M3 (and their sub-variants) and fan/no-fan are the two performance aspects, and then you just decide whether you want a 13"/14"/16".
- GoOnThenDoTell 4y ago
  and new colors. Holding out for a black 16”
  - mcphage 4y ago
    I had a black 13" MacBook back when those came out. I loved that machine, it was the perfect size and looked so cool. Then someone broke into my car after work and stole it. I'm still bitter about that.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- wlesieutre 4y ago
  The 13" is substantially different from the 14"/16" though. It's a carryover of the previous design (bigger bezels, no notch) and has the lower tier processor with 4+4 performance and efficiency CPU core split. The 14" and 16" have a 8+2 CPU cores instead. EDIT: other differences include mini-LED backlight, 120 hz refresh rate, 2x the base RAM, 4x the maximum RAM, function keys (instead of touch bar), support for 3 external displays (instead of 1), HDMI, SD card slot, magsafe, and faster charging Much more of a choice to make than "do I want a fan or not" if you include the 14" and 16". That's pretty accurate between the Air and 13" Pro though.
  - varenc 4y ago
    I think the grandparent commenter is illustrating how confusing this is. To break it down, here are the chips and laptop models: - M1 Macbook Air (old) - M1 Macbook Pro 13" (old) - M1 Pro Macbook Pro 14" (or M1 Max) - M1 Pro Macbook Pro 16" (or M1 Max) - M2 Macbook Air - M2 Macbook Pro 13" Note that the "Pro" modifier can be applied to both the laptop and to the chip. An M1 Pro or M1 Max is significantly more powerful than an M1 and still more powerful than an M2. An M2 Pro or M2 Max _chip_ doesn't yet exist, though the linked article's title confusingly implies it does. The thermal pad mod just makes the M2 Macbook Air perform as well as the M2 Macbook Pro 13", but it doesn't make it perform as well as the M1 Pro/Max Macbook Pro 14"/16". Benchmarks: https://browser.geekbench.com/mac-benchmarks https://browser.geekbench.com/mac-benchmarks To summarize: M1 Max > M1 Pro > M2 > M1 pretty confusing
    - tedunangst 4y ago
      When has it not been the case that the top spec CPU of the previous generation is faster than the lowest spec next generation? Are you also totally confused by the fact that a threadripper 3990x is faster than a ryzen 5500?
      - varenc 4y ago
        I'm not confused.. but as demonstrated in this thread, confusion exists amongst users. Also your example sort of made my point. The names "threadripper 3990x" and "ryzen 5500" are pretty meaningless by themselves and from those names alone there's no implied relationship about which one is newer/faster. This is a good thing! However, "M2 Macbook Pro" vs "M1 Pro Macbook Pro" could be naively interpreted incorrectly.
    - wlesieutre 4y ago
      At least with M2s coming out we'll get away from the problem where "M1 Max" sounds identical to "M1 Macs"
- lynndotpy 4y ago
  It's not straightforward to me personally. Look at the photos on the Apple store, I don't even know what these laptops look like, let alone which one to pick. Add in the SSD issues and the info-sparse spec list and I really can't tell and the whole S/Pro/Plus/Max/?? situation. I wish they were clearer
  - eyelidlessness 4y ago
    > Look at the photos on the Apple store, I don't even know what these laptops look like Browsing on my phone, apple.com > store > Mac[1], I see a carousel showing the front of each Mac model (oddly showing the older MacBook Air first, I’d guess because it’s the least expensive?). Tapping each model, a view for that model shows up with a carousel showing additional angles/perspectives. Granted this isn’t the most obvious navigation from the home page, and the individual products’ landing/marketing pages too frequently bury useful images. > Add in the SSD issues and the info-sparse spec list and I really can't tell and the whole S/Pro/Plus/Max/?? situation. I wish they were clearer If I go to Compare Mac Models[2], the spec comparisons don’t seem especially sparse. Below the fold details get more specific about the chips. Granted they’re mostly differentiated by core counts (and, oddly, memory bandwidth). The page also enumerates all configuration options for each model. I do agree they should be more upfront about SSD performance by configuration. 1: https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac 2: https://www.apple.com/mac/compare/ https://www.apple.com/mac/compare/
    - lynndotpy 4y ago
      Oh wow, I didn't even find the first page when on the apple site. Thanks for this! I was navigating Apple > Mac > Buy. I was looking at the pages for the specific laptops (which, as far as I can tell, only have the front-facing photos.) The spec situation is still confusing (took me awhile to figure out the $1200 MBAs and the $1500 MBAs were two configs of the same model; "Select" essentially takes you to the same place, which was very confusing.)
- gnicholas 4y ago
  I think the issue is that there is some overlap in performance between a fanless M2 and a fanned (is that a word?) M1. Also, Apple doesn't exactly advertise the fan status of each laptop. Currently, only the MBPs have fans, but in the past MBAs had fans also. But most people don't know the fan status of Apple's lineup, so this isn't really part of their marketing messaging.
joshstrange 4y ago
I mean you can fault them for "Max < Ultra" but once you get over that the naming is about 100000x easier than anything out of Intel/AMD/Qualcomm. M1: (base), Pro, Max, Ultra, <maybe Mac Pro chip?> M2: (base), Pro, <one would assume we will ge Max/Ultra as well> Compared to the competition (or rather, other chip makers since Apple doesn't sell it's chips) this seems way easier.
- adrianmsmith 4y ago
  I think it doesn't help that the computers are called Pro as well, so you could have a MacBook Pro with M1 Max, etc. I mean there was another comment on this thread that had to clarify that when they said "M2 Pro" they had meant the "MacBook Pro with M2" not a future "M2 Pro" chip.
  - beckingz 4y ago
    MacBook Pro with M1 Pro as opposed to the MacBook with M1 Pro. Definitely no confusion coming down the pipe.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
GeekyBear 4y ago
As opposed to the Intel/AMD naming scheme of random strings of letters and numbers?
- 988747 4y ago
  Intel: i3/i5/i7/i9 AMD Ryzen: 3/5/7/9 Looks pretty straightforward to me: higher number - better processor. Now between M1 Pro, Max and Ultra how can you tell which one is supposed to be better ? :)
  - GeekyBear 4y ago
    >Looks pretty straightforward to me Really? What's the difference between a Core i7-10710U and a Core i7-10510U? How can you tell that the Ryzen 7 5800U has Zen 3 cores while the Ryzen 7 5700U only has last gen Zen 2 cores from the name?

gnicholas 4y ago

Assuming these results are legit (as they seem to be), did Apple just not do this because it cuts the performance differential between the M2 MBA and the M1 MBPs too much?

Scaevolus 4y ago
Many of these Macbook thermal mods use the case more aggressively as a heatsink, and can end up making the enclosure hot enough to burn you if used as a laptop.
- generj 4y ago
  They probably could add some case temperature sensors and throttle once the case gets hot enough. Would still gain a lot of performance; outside of benchmarks most people don’t run their computers hard enough to need full boost for minutes at a time.
  - gambiting 4y ago
    Then you'd just get another mod disconnecting the sensor, because of course apple is hiding performance from you /s
- asdff 4y ago
  To be fair the macbook already gets too hot to handle under load as it is
Asdrubalini 4y ago
They probably didn't want the aluminium case to get too hot.
- smoldesu 4y ago
  FWIW, the default scaling settings have no problem letting the M2 Macbook Air hit 80-90 Celsius by default, it will just heavily start throttling the performance cores to prevent overheating, which better cooling helps mitigate.

Kirby64 4y ago

This sounds like it's the same thing as the thermal pad mod for the M1 MacBook Air. On the upside, you get better sustained performance and it lasts nearly just as long as the Pro, from what I recall. On the downside, it elevated the temperature of the backside aluminum to a high enough temperature to be able to cause burns (something like 80-90C). Not a huge issue if you always use it on a table or something, but if you truly use it as a 'lap' top, it'll be quite unpleasant.

yumraj 4y ago
> if you truly use it as a 'lap' top, it'll be quite unpleasant. Sounds not too different from Intel MBP's. I could never use my MBP as a "lap" top due to how hot it got.
macinjosh 4y ago
I kid you not, in the early Intel MacBookPro days the Genius Bar told me that my extremely hot MBP that I could not use on my lap due to the heat was not in fact a laptop computer but a notebook computer and by using it on my lap I was essentially holding it wrong. This was in or around 2005 IIRC.
- kube-system 4y ago
  This isn’t just a Mac thing, lawyers on all sides of the PC market highly suggested the terminology “notebook” over laptop for the longest time.
  - SenHeng 4y ago
    Unsure if related, laptops are called Note-PCs here in Japan. Asking anyone about a 'laptop' will just get you blank stares.
- eastbound 4y ago
  The original Intel i7 in my HP laptop in 2010 had a working temperature up to 102°C. The fan noise was insane. Never bought another PC after that.

adolph 4y ago

The marginal improvement over the Pro may have to do with the Pro's older/slower storage in addition to the Pro throttling until fan start.

gnicholas 4y ago
Isn't the slow storage issue only on the base (256GB) model? I don't know which model these benchmarks use, but it would be surprising — and very dishonest — if he was using an MBP with slower storage and then chose an MBA with fast storage (the base model MBA has the same issue as the MBP).

999900000999 4y ago

Maybe it's just because I bought a couple of computers back in 2020, but everything I'm seeing from Apple makes me want to wait. Whenever they release a sub 1k laptop with 512 GB we can talk. I've had phenomenal fun on an laptop running Fedora and Deepin.

deanc 4y ago
Yeah good luck with that considering inflation and chip shortages.
- 999900000999 4y ago
  I mean my fedora laptop has a terabyte hard drive. Whenever I have an urge to use macOS applications, I have the Mac mini at home.
gnicholas 4y ago
M1 MBA with academic discount?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

ricardobeat 4y ago

Note that when the article says this outperforms the "M2 Pro", they mean the Macbook Pro with a M2 chip, not the actual M2 Pro (sibling of the M2 Max) chips which have yet to be released.

moolcool 4y ago
Apple had a blank slate for a new naming scheme and already botched it
- masklinn 4y ago
  I can't say I had any expectation given the mess that is the iDevices naming schemes (especially the ipads), but the Apple Silicon naming really is mind-boggingly bad. It's like the names are picked by a 12 years old with sub-par naming abilities.
  - yonig 4y ago
    Apple TV (hardware), Apple TV (app), and Apple TV+ (premium subscription). It’s like they try and keep it so simple it makes you feel stupid
randyrand 4y ago
This really illustrates how poorly the chips were named. ‘Pro’ is overused to the point of ambiguity.
- Xeoncross 4y ago
  So is the M2 Pro better than the M1 Max? Of course not, it's clear as mud.
  - antifa 4y ago
    M2 Incissor is about on par with the M1 Omega.
  - 4y ago

macNchz 4y ago

I did this to my long suffering 2015 MacBook Pro, which always had significant thermal problems. It worked pretty well to keep it from overheating, but it’s no longer safe to use the computer on my actual lap as the bottom gets skin-burningly hot in minutes.

asdff 4y ago
Rip off the thick cardboard backing of a notebook and tape it under there with some pennies to form a little bit of an airgap. Boom. Free slim profile laptop stand that you can keep on all the time. Who looks at the bottom of the computer anyhow?

carlycue 4y ago

I find the overheating controversy of the fanless M2 MacBook Air to be bizarre. If you open up the M2 MacBook Air and take a look inside, it looks almost identical to the iPad Pro. The M2 MacBook Air is clearly designed to be the clamshell version of the iPad Pro. It's not meant to do heavy workloads for long periods of time. Apple wants you to upgrade to the thicker and heavier 14" and 16" MacBook Pro's with fans for those kind of heavy tasks.

nsxwolf 4y ago
Do most people understand this, though? I would have assumed it was chiefly about a difference in size - that the main tradeoff would be reduced screen real estate in exchange for a lighter weight and smaller form factor.
- rejectfinite 4y ago
  That much more price just for 2" more? No way.
- _aavaa_ 4y ago
  Most people idk. But most people are not the ones for whom the lack of a fan would ever be a problem. Most people do not run long renders, or compile lots of code. Most people browse the web, look at photos, and send emails/messages.
- tshaddox 4y ago
  I suspect that anyone with even a passing awareness of the Mac product line and the term "performance benchmarks" would know that performance has long been one of the key distinguishing characteristics of the Air and Pro lines.
orangecat 4y ago
Sure, although there's a bit of dissonance between "this is a great laptop because it uses the M2 which is our fastest CPU ever" and "you shouldn't be complaining about performance on an entry level system".

ajaimk 4y ago

Apple does a lot of research on comfortable lap temperature. This guaranteed to burn someones lap.

CoolGuySteve 4y ago

I feel like Apple lost a golden opportunity to add these pads themselves but then thermal throttle this machine in the firmware UNLESS you purchase a $199 magnetic heatsink/docking station for the underside. Seems like something they would have done if only they had thought of the idea.

Tagbert 4y ago
they could have done it if they thought that there was a problem for the people buying the Air. If those people are frequently doing 8K Final Cut Pro renders, then this kind of modification might make sense. If the Air buyers are browsing the web, doing photo edits, and doing basic programming, there is no need because those tasks don't push it into the heat limits. Of course, there is the problem that those mods cause the case to heat up past the limits that EU safety regulations allow, but they just don't need to sell it in the EU then?
- SR2Z 4y ago
  This seems like such low-hanging fruit, though. It wouldn't take very much at all - just a single extra NFC chip, and some code to allow the chip to run at full TDP while plugged in + on an approved cooling pad. The benefits are HUGE - plenty of people want small laptops that they can use on the go, but most laptops spend most of their time docked.
  - Tagbert 4y ago
    How huge are the benefits, really? This doesn't affect normal operations. The laptop stays cool during most of the things you would do on a laptop. The only time it hits the thermal limits are during large batch operations involving both the cpu and the gpu. Even then, it still does the work but has to slow down by only 10-20%.

GeekyBear 4y ago

LTT Tech literally did a video with an identical thermal pad mod a year and a half ago with the M1 Air. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghDvyItIHTY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghDvyItIHTY TLDR - Adding the thermal pads wouldn't pass regulatory muster.

cercatrova 4y ago
Linus Tech Tips Tech

roflchoppa 4y ago

I’ve been playing COD Warzone on my 2018 MPB 15”, I kept getting stuck at 17-30 FPS, so I slapped a big ol fan on the back of the computer to help circulate the air around it, and on the back cover. Solid 60 FPS now. Should be sufficient for a while, thermal throttling is a real thing.

vuln 4y ago
Pics of the setup? Thanks!
rejectfinite 4y ago
Just buy a PC desktop or play on console... jesus...
- imbnwa 4y ago
  On the one hand I applaud such bricolage, but yeah I'm good with my PS5
- roflchoppa 4y ago
  Why? MPB works fine for the game. Why waste money?
klelatti 4y ago
This reminds me of an incident a long time ago when we had issues with Compaq 386’s overheating. I came back from holiday to be told that they had solved it by adding a bigger fan. When I finally saw the offending machines they had their covers off and 15’ office fans pointing down onto the motherboard. Did the job though.
deleted 4y ago
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asdff 4y ago
I had an xbox 360 that would always overheat and red ring itself. Eventually I realized the window fan I owned had almost the same curve angle as the 360 case. I built a little stand out of some books to hold it flat upright with the air blowing straight up, with the xbox laid horizontally on top of it. Air was just dumping through the vents in the case and that xbox never red ringed again. Wasn't designed for it but it worked better than the manufactured solution evidently.

bogdanu 4y ago

Until Apple decides to lower their prices for the Air M2, I'll wait with my upgrade from M1. I own an Air M1 with 8GB and I was thinking to buy the newer version until I saw the pricing. Heck, the difference between the M1 with 16GB RAM and 512 GB storage and a M1 14" MPB with the same amount of RAM and storage is around 60 euros (from a local reseller). I haven't bought the MBP PRO because I find it too heavy for my personal usage (I also have a company MBP 16" Intel that will be replaced next month with an M1 Max version).

AaronFriel 4y ago

There's a very good reason the bottom panel isn't part of the cooling system, as a 70C panel sitting on one's lap could be indicated in infertility, long before it causes any burns or other obvious discomfort. If the Air had a Surface Book like design where the heat could radiate behind the display, this would be a different affair. It doesn't, so that heat will go to your legs and what's between them. Beyond just being uncomfortable, this would be a liability and press issue that no one at any laptop company wants to deal with. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0015028210026890 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00150...

Xeoncross 4y ago
So someone who is able to install custom heatsinks on an expensive electronic is also going to be rendering long professional videos (to get it hot) and keep that +150F degree laptop on their lap long enough to cook their goods? That sounds a little far fetched.
- kube-system 4y ago
  The person you are replying to is explaining why Apple doesn't do it. They didn't say anything about third party modifications. Someone who modifies their own laptop is not going to sue themselves over it, so that concern obviously doesn't apply to that scenario :)
BizarroLand 4y ago
They make very inexpensive laptop fan pads that would completely prevent that from ever happening and add additional cooling to the laptop.
gnicholas 4y ago
Do you mean permanent infertility, or just for the sperm that are currently present? I have to imagine it's the latter, which is not a big deal for anyone not looking to conceive. If there were persistent effects (even short of full infertility), that could be a much more serious issue.

Havoc 4y ago

Surely that has to be intentional segmentation? Seems a bit improbable that a company capable of excellent engineering choices forgets about the obvious - measure temp (100+) and realize hmmm maybe we need to disperse that bit better with this easy solution

deleted 4y ago
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_aavaa_ 4y ago
Segmentation in the sense that: this laptop is not designed for the workloads that produce 100+ temps. That's not an oversight, that's an engineering tradeoff to lower the weight and thickness for the workloads that it is designed for: day-to-day usage by the average person (i.e. no video render, no big project compiling).
- Havoc 4y ago
  >that's an engineering tradeoff to lower the weight and thickness huh? This mod doesn't seem to change thickness at all and 3% weight gain for a gigantic jump in performance under load barely counts as a trade-off....more like a no-brainer.
  - dijit 4y ago
    except for the inevitable "this laptop is uncomfortable to use" "this laptop causes infertility" etc; etc; If you want sustained performance (greater than 5 minutes of sustained load) then just don't get this laptop. For bursty workloads (as is standard for ultraportables) it's perfectly fine, you'll never even notice there was a thermal cut-off.
  - _aavaa_ 4y ago
    As others have mention in the comments here, it’s not about thickness of the pads it’s about the new surface temperature of the chassis. It gets too hot to be at all comfortable. If you need sustained workloads, get the laptop designed for sustained workloads.

yieldcrv 4y ago

so if you add thermal pads to the Macbook Pro with the M2? its very confusing that this article is actually about two devices with the same chipset, the Macbook air and Macbook pro. It seemed like they were referring to a different unreleased superior chip: the M2 Pro

CalChris 4y ago

I wonder if a Mac repair shop would do this mod, perhaps if I sourced the thermal pad myself.

rowanG077 4y ago
Honestly it's just removing the screws in the back. Adding them and closing it up.

Danborg 4y ago

Can’t you just buy one of those laptop stands with a fan integrated into it for cooling and accomplish something similar?

jjcm 4y ago
I suspect no, as if you look at ifixit's teardown they show there's actually a thermal shield in place, likely to prevent your lap from being exposed to the higher temps: https://youtu.be/NjP-aAhHhnE?t=122 https://youtu.be/NjP-aAhHhnE?t=122

elif 4y ago

The elegance of the fix makes me wonder if the original design had a thermal pad in that location, but a lawyer decided they could avoid more liability by crippling the CPU speed instead of burning laps.

lawkwok 4y ago
I mean they could technically run all their chips even hotter for more performance but it’s a trade off. Apple probably wants to make their products feel like magic, meaning no noise, fans, or heat-—like the iPad.
saddlerustle 4y ago
Various product safety standards and some states' regulations requires the surface temperature of devices not exceed ~50°C

zer0zzz 4y ago

How is it faster than the m2 with a fan? Does using the case as a heat sink dissipate more heat or is the m2 in the air binned more aggressively?

kernal 4y ago

Now add active cooling and see how much higher the benchmarks are.

hyperbovine 4y ago

Does it void AppleCare?

93po 4y ago
If you remove it before servicing and don't leave any traces of it, it shouldn't.
Kimcha 4y ago
I saw a post on Reddit where a user was denied service, because the thermal pad left a spot that looked like it could be liquid. Apple refused to service it due to liquid damage. It was probably the glue residue. So perhaps it would be better to stick it to the lid and not the heat sink.

squarefoot 4y ago

Note that thermal pads, although being a lot better than nothing, perform worse than thermal paste or thermal glue. If space allows it, gluing a piece of copper or aluminium on each chip would increase the chip's thermal mass significantly, slowing down the speed at which the chips changes its temperature. Then one could add a thinner thermal pad to achieve even better thermal transfer with the laptop plate. https://www.ebay.com/itm/203942669848 https://www.ebay.com/itm/203942669848 https://www.ebay.com/itm/195034139133 https://www.ebay.com/itm/195034139133 (no relation with the sellers, just search for "copper heatsink" and "thermal glue") Before using the glue, a test with normal paste is advised so that one can find the right heatsink/pad thickness.

93po 4y ago
Say goodbye to any warranty and possibly repairability gluing a sheet of copper inside your macbook though.

ProllyInfamous 4y ago

The reason these are called "portable computers" and not "laptops" has to do with the electromagnetic radiation generated from onboard wireless COMMs (e.g. WiFi). As this type of machine should already NOT be sitting atop a human, I do not see an issue with directing the excess heat to the exterior shell/heatsink.

93po 4y ago
Do you have a reputable source that the levels of EM radiation from laptops is harmful when placed on laps but not when placed on desks in front of you?

barkingcat 4y ago

People never realize that you can do the thermal pad "mod" to the 13" M2 Pro as well, to make it reach beyond the speeds of the M2 air to get closer to the 14" speeds. And you can do the mod to the 14/16" laptops as well - basically a thermal version of an overclock. The thermal pad mod was applied on the 2019 Macbook Pro 16" intel model to great success before M1 was even a thing.

rowanG077 4y ago
Did you do that mod on the 14 inch? I tried to search on google and couldn't find anything.

derefr 4y ago

To be clear, the real reason Apple don't do this themselves, is because there are legal regulations preventing them from selling products that are any hotter to the touch. According to the IEC, metal contact surfaces on machines are considered unsafe above 55.5C. And unmodded, Apple's notebooks already scrape up against that upper limit. With the mod, they go quite a bit over it — well into "causes pain to touch" territory. (See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghDvyItIHTY&t=278s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghDvyItIHTY&t=278s)

rektide 4y ago
The stupid & obvious & I-wish-us-idiot-laymen-could-claim-prior-art (not-that-that-helps-anymore) answer is to put a temp sensor on the case too. Just not thermally bridging is a fine stupid answer. But if someone puts their laptop onto a laptop cooling stand, heck yes it would be fantastic to reap a 2x+ benefit. This is, in my view, as much a product choice to make sure Air does not encroach upon better territory as anything else. Companies like Intel & AMD have been way behind comparatively to Apple in mobile chips, but the old-giant competitors at least typically allow a well cooled chip to work better, which, in my view, is a product not technical decision made here: the decision to use less cooling. That said, there is some (I'd wager modest) benefit to using the case as a thermal insulator rather than dissipator for the average user.
- skavi 4y ago
  Dell’s XPS series has had a Gore-Tex insulation layer on the inside of the chassis for some time.

mrtweetyhack 4y ago

londons_explore 4y ago

For anyone wondering why Apple didn't ship it out of the factory like this.... There are laws and regulations in most of the world about the maximum surface temperature that devices may hit during operation. They usually vary by material. Since the MacBook is metal, the maximum surface temperature usually can't be above 45C or so to avoid burning the user. I'd bet with this mod, the surface of the laptop gets much hotter than that, so it would be illegal to sell.