Before getting my 2021 16" MBP with a M1 Max, I'd read comments like yours and get the idea that I'd be able to encode video without it getting warm :-P This is

Before getting my 2021 16" MBP with a M1 Max, I'd read comments like yours and get the idea that I'd be able to encode video without it getting warm :-P This is not the case, at least not with the M1 Max. It does get warm if we push it hard for a few minutes. This could be easily avoided if Apple started the fans at low speeds earlier, but instead they let the SoC run at 80-90ºC for 2 or 3 minutes before the fans kick in at low speeds and that heat needs to go somewhere. There are 3rd party apps that let you control fan speeds, which is what I do. With this said, coming from a 2019 16" MBP (Intel) it was a huuuge improvement. The damn thing would get warm doing basic tasks. At full power, it would throttle even with the fans at 100% and because the Intel processor was allowed to use more than the 100W the computer could take, any very long tasks would drain the battery. M1/M2 macs are nothing like that.