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Cooling Solution for the 2018 MBP

haruhiko said:
Just return the machine if it's not working as advertised.. you shouldn't pay so much for the extra horsepower and then disable it.

In my country, Apple doesn't even accept return unless for obvious DOA cases... It's totally backwards (due to the scalpers).
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Agreed. I don't see the point of getting the i9. Maybe not even the 2.6 GHz i7. Just get the 2.2 GHz i7 and then if you need the faster 560X GPU, you can upgrade the 2.2 to that for cheap.

I've mentioned before that the 2.2 is already faster than last year's top-of-the-line i7.
 
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pl1984 said:
Or maybe Apple can retreat from their "thin at any cost" product offering and go back to what was working fine. My 2012 rMBP doesn't throttle under load.
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It’s not thin at any cost, it’s “thin within spec”.

Your 2012 rMBP does throttle under load, just not as much - but put an i9 in there, and it would throttle just as much. The newer MBPs actually have better cooling (I can tell you that my 2016 MBP runs cooler than my 2013 MBP). It’s not just the size, it’s the fans, and - of course - the CPU.

No solution is simple. It’s easy to think that adding half a centimeter would make everything better, but that’s not necessarily true. In order to have an i9 that wouldn’t throttle you need some big, big fans in there, and we’re talking about some really large laptops here. That’s just not Apple’s way.
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dazz87 said:
Make sure you pick this up for your business while running the macbook....
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This is not constructive or helping anyone. It’s also not funny because the fridge joke was already made like a 100 times.
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Painter2002 said:
So I know this may seem like a stupid question, but being new to the idea of actually manually turning off/on the Turbo Boost functionality of the Intel chips, is there any possible side effects or issues from using an app like the one you listed to shut off Turbo Boost (other a possibly slowing down some performance of course). While I don’t have a 2018 model, I’m curious to see if this would be beneficial at all for my 2017 MBP.

Also does manually manipulating the chip functions void any of the AppleCare warranty?
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It shouldn’t void warranty. Technically, undervolting could, but I don’t think there is a way for them to know. And switching off TB just prevents your CPU from raising the clock speed, nothing fancy.

There are benefits to turning off TB for your 2017 as well, in terms of cooler operation and longer battery life, but that (and the performance cost) will depend on your workflow. It’s a simple switch from the menu bar for the Turbo Boost Switcher app and it works instantly (you can turn in on and off whenever you feel like), so you can try the free version and see.
 
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aevan said:
It’s not thin at any cost, it’s “thin within spec”.

Your 2012 rMBP does throttle under load, just not as much - but put an i9 in there, and it would throttle just as much. The newer MBPs actually have better cooling (I can tell you that my 2016 MBP runs cooler than my 2013 MBP). It’s not just the size, it’s the fans, and - of course - the CPU.

No solution is simple. It’s easy to think that adding half a centimeter would make everything better, but that’s not necessarily true. In order to have an i9 that wouldn’t throttle you need some big, big fans in there, and we’re talking about some really large laptops here. That’s just not Apple’s way.
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This is not constructive or helping anyone. It’s also not funny because the fridge joke was already made like a 100 times.
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I think we may be overdefending Apple. Yes the i9 in the 2012 will throttle more, but then, the 2012 was not designed around the i9, it was designed around the chip back then. I think what people are rightly criticising Apple of is that the newer models clearly throttle a lot more than previous generations.

There is hope that maybe Apple will release some updates which control the temperatures of the new machines better, which would definitely alleviate a lot of heat (no pun intended) Apple is getting over the issue - especially seeing as users have managed to use tools to improve the performance. It should be noted that even with these tools, some users have noticed that peak performance still doesn't meet up to other comparable laptops on the market using the same chips, or even Apple laptops using older chips - which is a bit worrying.

I do see where you are coming from that it would be seen as a step backwards to modify the MacBook to accomodate a single chip generation, I mean could you imagine if they added 3mm to the thickness to deal with this chip which runs much hotter than previous chips? I can't. Perhaps it might have been best that they skipped this generation of chips altogether (won't be the first time they skipped a generation). In some ways I do wish they kept the 2015 model thickness though, as we would have hopefully had a larger battery and better cooling. Now that they have made it thinner, they can't really go back I guess.

I would be happy to pay an extra premium if Apple innovated some liquid cooling solution or otherwise into their MacBook's. Think most people wouldn't mind to shell out an extra £100-£200 to have unrivaled cooling capabitilies in the laptop market, but I could be wrong.
 
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EugW said:
2.2 GHz i7. Best bang for the buck, particularly because it has the lowest chance of throttling, yet it is already blistering fast.
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Pretty sure he already has the 2.2.

I think he meant if he returns the MBP, what other laptop would he go with (beside a MBP)?

I tried a Dell XPS 9560 from their Outlet (only $1,149 for the 7700HQ/16/512/4K model at the time!). Loved it. Really... But then I noticed a dead pixel right in the center of the screen (stuck white at all times - only noticeable during very dark images/videos), so I guess I'll see if they can exchange it ASAP. If they can and it is as good as this XPS with everything else but no dead pixels, I'm going to return the MBP.

Using Throttlestop, I was able to undervolt and tweak some power management settings to have a max temp of 82C under full load (Prime95 for 30 minutes). No repasting needed (which I was surprised about - I even bought thermal paste expecting to need to use it).

I got more battery life on the XPS - even with the 4K model. To test that I had both the MBP and XPS15 on the same Twitch stream until they each died. The XPS15 got over 8 hours on Twitch (which is horribly optimized and usually drains battery with ease), while my 15" MBP only got almost 5 hours. With light work - the XPS15 got over 10+ hours while the most I can get from the MBP is about 7 hours even with the same light usage.

I think I was lucky though - which is what pains me about the dead pixel. No coil whine. No throttling. No issues with the audio. I read horror stories about Dell XPS on the Dell subreddit... Seemed like I won the lottery if you exclude the single dead pixel.

Edit: And by the way - the Dell XPS 15's 4K screen is gorgeous. Absolutely knocks it out of the park when you compare it side by side to the MBP. (again - except for that damn QC with the dead pixel, haha)
 
aevan said:
It shouldn’t void warranty. Technically, undervolting could, but I don’t think there is a way for them to know. And switching off TB just prevents your CPU from raising the clock speed, nothing fancy.

There are benefits to turning off TB for your 2017 as well, in terms of cooler operation and longer battery life, but that (and the performance cost) will depend on your workflow. It’s a simple switch from the menu bar for the Turbo Boost Switcher app and it works instantly (you can turn in on and off whenever you feel like), so you can try the free version and see.
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Thank you for the info! I just wanted to check before I went out and tried it myself!
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maflynn said:
Other than performance decrease, no


No


That was an option I considered but in the end, with this solution, I'm happy with how things are running.

If I returned it, what laptop would I get?
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Thanks you for responding! I might give it a try to see how big of a difference it’ll make on my machine. And thank you for sharing your experience with this tool, before this I didn’t realize there was an application for MacOS that would let you manage the CPU this way.
 
Anyone using Volta download the new update today?
28W was the highest value I could select after the update it goes to 56W.
The slider now increments by 2W so it's no longer possible to fine tune to a specific value.
Undervolting slider is grayed out on 2018 MBP. (returning in future update?)

Nice app, unchecking 'Turbo Boost' makes a big impact on temperature and fan noise.
I like the idea of keeping Turbo on and limiting the power, hopefully the option to go back to single digit increments returns.

If loud fan wooshing annoys you give it a try.
 
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Dukat said:
Anyone using Volta download the new update today?
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i have and so far, its no worse as the prior version. I too noticed that the slider is locked in on even numbers, Its a minor annoyance, I suppose there was an internal programming reason for this. Its not a huge issue, but I would have prefered that it was left untouched.

Dukat said:
I like the idea of keeping Turbo on and limiting the power
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That's what I do, I have the power limited to about 34 watts, and I'm happy with the balance of power/heat. I'll be off site and traveling with the MBP tomorrow, so it will be the first test of using the laptop mobile, so I'll see how it does, but I'm not worried.

Dukat said:
If loud fan wooshing annoys you give it a try.
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The fan noise didn't bother me, but rather knowing that the fans are working hard to keep up with the heat. That heat is what bothered me, I'd rather avoid risking any potential damage to the internals and so if I have a cooler machine, I'll have more peace of mind :)
 
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I'm all in all pretty happy with the performance, and the gras isn't greener on the windows side. Believe me, I've had my fair share of throttling Aero15x, XPS 9560/9570 and X1 Carbon 6. Gen over the last couple of months.

But as I'll have to use the MBP 2018 for about two weeks in a warm environment for taxing stuff, is there a cooler I can place it on that not completely sucks? I know they don't do a lot, repasting would be far more effective. But unfortunately with Apple, that's to difficult.

So: anyone has some experience with laptop coolers they can recommend?
 
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