For Throttling and Heat Issues...

[tech324]

For those who are able to detect throttling and/or your macbook heating up a lot, have you tried putting a small fan directly on it to see if that helps? I have seen videos where people have put fans on their surface pros to help in gaming, etc. I am not saying people will always want a fan atached or blowing on their macbook at all times, but it may help. Please report findings.

Here is a video of someone stating that using a fan improves performance on a surface pro:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uC8rCeDMqFw&feature=youtu.be

 

[z31fanatic]

You're holding it wrong!

 

[hypno]

There are not heat issues. It is a passively cooled CPU operating well within Intel's specs.

 

[Theophil1971]

I'm not sure anyone is actually experiencing throttling. People are experiencing the case getting warm, but not CPU throttling, so far as I've seen. The stress tests some have performed (running CPU at 99% for sustained periods) have resulted in core CPU temps of 88-89C... Which is below Intel's 95C threshold for the Core M chips. They won't throttle below that 95C.
The only issue, then, is personal comfort as the chassis warms up at high CPU loads. This is subjective.

 

[tech324]

I'm not sure anyone is actually experiencing throttling. People are experiencing the case getting warm, but not CPU throttling, so far as I've seen. The stress tests some have performed (running CPU at 99% for sustained periods) have resulted in core CPU temps of 88-89C... Which is below Intel's 95C threshold for the Core M chips. They won't throttle below that 95C.
The only issue, then, is personal comfort as the chassis warms up at high CPU loads. This is subjective.

I believe you may be wrong. 95C is the maximum temperature for the processor. That is when it will start having issues or shutting down. I would expect throttling to happen sooner especially if temperatures are elevated for a long period of time. Especially on a fanless processor that can't remove heat quickly.

http://ark.intel.com/products/84672/Intel-Core-M-5Y71-Processor-4M-Cache-up-to-2_90-GHz

http://ark.intel.com/products/83612/Intel-Core-M-5Y70-Processor-4M-Cache-up-to-2_60-GHz

http://ark.intel.com/products/84669/Intel-Core-M-5Y51-Processor-4M-Cache-up-to-2_60-GHz

 

[johngwheeler]

Anyone used Intel Power Gadget to get maximum steady state temp?

I believe you may be wrong. 95C is the maximum temperature for the processor. That is when it will start having issues or shutting down. I would expect throttling to happen sooner especially if temperatures are elevated for a long period of time. Especially on a fanless processor that can't remove heat quickly.

http://ark.intel.com/products/84672/Intel-Core-M-5Y71-Processor-4M-Cache-up-to-2_90-GHz

http://ark.intel.com/products/83612/Intel-Core-M-5Y70-Processor-4M-Cache-up-to-2_60-GHz

http://ark.intel.com/products/84669/Intel-Core-M-5Y51-Processor-4M-Cache-up-to-2_60-GHz

Yes, the throttled stead-state temperature will be a lot lower than 95C. Someone posted Intel Power Gadget results during a video encode that showed 88C temps for several minutes.

It would be interesting for someone to run Power Gadget with a really long-running intensive operation (e.g. a 2 hour video encode) to see what temperature the CPU settles at. It may well be 65C as suggested. I think the Asus laptop that uses the Core-M keeps CPU temp at about this level.