Is this normal for my i7 2010 imac

michial said:

When we watch media or play sims 3 it bakes. Super hot. Not too hot to touch but very warm. Is this thing gonna melt or is the aluminum actually pulling the heat away from the components to the shell? Is it designed to aid heat factors internally?

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It is normal. The casing acts as a giant heat sink to suck heat away from all of the parts. When they test them they run them at 100% load for hours and hours. If it is getting 'too warm' the fans will speed up. Full speed the fans will sound like a jet engine. If that's not happening then it's not 'too hot'.

When you touch it, just think how awesome it is that case is not just a case, but as jmpage2 says, a heatsink. I didn't know that, that's pretty cool.

I haven't heard the fans on mind kick in yet and its gotten very hot.

michial said:

Yeah, cause a lot of ignorant posters claim its form over function or bad design, but its actually on purpose. Is this true or just conjecture and something we want to believe? Has apple officially said as much. Youd think that would be a great selling point if true. Not doubting anyone here, just curious if apple says as much.

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I don't know mate. Its just bloody marvellous either way.

You could take it apart and let me know....

michial said:

Yeah, cause a lot of ignorant posters claim its form over function or bad design, but its actually on purpose. Is this true or just conjecture and something we want to believe? Has apple officially said as much. Youd think that would be a great selling point if true. Not doubting anyone here, just curious if apple says as much.

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There is zero question about it being by design. Apple doesn't tout things like 'case acts as a heat sink' just like they don't tout the cpu specs of their machines.

As far as Apple is concerned, this is all 'magic fairy dust' that makes the machines so enjoyable, at least from the point of view of most of their customers.

No question about design. Apple finally brought proper desktop cpus to the iMac lineup when they introduced the all aluminum enclosure. The combination of larger chassis, all aluminum enclosure, jumbo-sized heat sinks on the inside, and larger fans all meant that apple could get away with putting intel's performance grade cpus in the iMacs.