4 ms·
The thermals were all Intel’s fault. My 2019 MacBook from work is an oven. I can’t tell whether my smaller m4 max is turned on by touching it.
by trane_project 1y ago
The thermals were all Intel’s fault. My 2019 MacBook from work is an oven. I can’t tell whether my smaller m4 max is turned on by touching it.
- bigyabai 1y agoYour 2019 Macbook also uses a different chassis, designed by Jony Ive. Apple knew it throttled the chips they used but shipped it anyways, presumably because Ive liked his thinness even when it results in a bendgate. You'll note that Macbooks don't quite look the same after Ive left and his influence went away.
- PantaloonFlames 1y agoI don’t actually know. Last MBP I had was circa 2017 or so. How are they different ?
- kshacker 1y agoBeefier. Bulkier. Quick google search says Intel 16" was 4.3 lbs whereas M4 16" is 4.7 lbs. Not a big difference you say but 1) it is going in the opposite direction where the newer product is bulkier and 2) imagine the years of thin-ness that would have been forced under a different regime.
- hinkley 1y agoI wonder how much of that is battery.
- jltsiren 1y agoBlaming Intel is a poor excuse. Apple could have done some actual design and built a laptop around the hardware they had. But they didn't want to. Instead, they ignored the reality, stuck to the flawed design, and shipped mediocre laptops several years in a row.
- mrweasel 1y agoApple had the design ready for an Intel chips that didn't arrive. Rather than revisiting their design they opted to just chuck the chip into a design that couldn't accommodate it's thermal characteristics.
- apt-apt-apt-apt 1y agoI spent way too much time figuring out that around 53W is the maximum that the last Intel MBP can sustain over longer periods before the VRM (converts power for the CPU) poops out and throttles you.
- microtonal 1y agoI agree, but I think they didn't care. For some years, some Apple execs believed that the iPad was going to replace the Mac. After that they knew that the Apple Silicon Mac was nearby, so they probably didn't want to make an investment in a 'legacy' platform. Did suck for all the people who bought one.
- trane_project 1y agoI've never had an Intel laptop work well in the efficiency and thermal department, Apple or not. I used to blame Apple too, but seeing the difference, it's hard to argue who the main culprit was. Can't design around a bad foundation.
- ginko 1y agoPentium M's were magical when they came out.
- cameronh90 1y agoPerhaps, but pretty much every high performance Intel laptop between 2017 and 2023 is exactly the same unless it's in an heavy, enormous and unpleasantly loud gaming chassis. Supposedly the Core Ultra Series 2 are an improvement but I haven't tried one yet. For a while, you could get the thermals a bit more tolerable by undervolting them, but then the plundervolt mitigations blocked that. (Typing this comment from a Lenovo X1 Extreme sitting on a cooling pad, sat next to an X1 Carbon that we can't use because it throttles too much. :)