497: The Hotness Has to Go Somewhere

Cooling Techniques

Exploring cooling techniques for laptops, Marco Arment and John Siracusa discuss the effectiveness of various methods. Marco suggests that using a clamshell mode with the screen hinge up can enhance convection cooling, potentially reducing the need for additional cooling accessories 1. He emphasizes that the new M1 and M2 MacBooks have significantly improved thermal characteristics compared to older Intel models 2. John adds that while outboard cooling accessories like the SV Alt might be considered, the new MacBook Pro models are less likely to throttle under heavy loads 3.

The assumptions that you've made about how Macs behave performance wise, noise wise, thermally, if you've made those assumptions only with intel machines, drop all those assumptions when you're moving into the m one and m two era.

--- Marco Arment

Marco advises trying the 16-inch model in clamshell mode before investing in additional cooling solutions.

   

Thermal Throttling

John Siracusa explains thermal throttling and its impact on device performance, noting that even when throttling occurs, the new MacBooks remain faster than older models 4. He highlights that thermal throttling is often imperceptible to users unless they are running specific benchmarks. John also discusses the trade-offs of fanless designs, like the M2 MacBook Air, which prioritize silence over maximum performance 4.

The hotness has to go somewhere. It's like, why don't you just dump it to the case? Well, now your case is hot.

--- John Siracusa

Marco Arment adds that software bloat can exacerbate performance issues by consuming unnecessary resources, further complicating thermal management 5.