Comment by ProllyInfamous
18 days ago
If you place 1mm thermal pads between the sinks and the case, the CPUs/GPUs won't throttle as readily. At least for my M3 MBA (check your actual clearance).
I replaced a MacPro5,1 with an M2Pro — which uses soooooo much less energy performing similarly mundane tasks (~15x+). Idle is ~25W v. 160W
Caution: don't put the laptop in your lap if you've done this. There's a reason it doesn't ship like that out of the box.
You already don't want notebooks sitting on your lap (safe radiation exposure limits from WiFi / Bluetooth), which is why they're no longer referred to as "laptops" (by OEMs).
But if you're commenting about temperature / burns — the bottom of the MBP doesn't get noticeably warmer (at all), likely because the large metal case is such an efficient dissipator/sink.
It's going to get hot if you peg the CPU/GPU at 100% for long enough. Just a matter of physics.
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