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Gaming on Macbook Pros... safe?
- Thread starter dk808
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Really the CPU Core temperature is not an issue as the CPU will not exceed safe limits. What has historically been the weak link with the MBP is the dGPU, and from all reports I have read so far the 2016 MBP dGPU runs far cooler at 80C - 85C max, so I don't think you have any real concerns. I still have a 8 year old 15" MBP kicking about and I can assure you it runs way hotter than my Retina`s let alone the new 2016 model, as in burning hot, thx to it`s Penryn processor, this MBP will take your fingerprints off on a good day
I have owned every generation of MBP and they all run hot, as that`s how Apple designs them, and to me the 2016 presents less of an issue with it thermal envelope than it`s predecessors from what I have read so far. So in short enjoy your Mac
Stop monitoring the temp just elevate the rear if your going to push it to the max for a good period of time.Q-6
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Problem solved Westone W40
the new 2016 MBP is much quieter as well. I only game casually on my Surface Book and it`s about the same as the new MBP (I think) so the fan noise is not intrusive, if I want it to go away I just plug in my W40`s to the controller and have at it Q-6
Seems inevitable given the thinness and heat to dissipate. I would be happy to pay hundreds if some company would come up with a magic cooling method. Ive been hoping apple brings the cool stuff from trash can MP to the MBP line.
Heat exhausts out the rear, what I would do if I wanted to game seriously on a MBP would be A pickup a 1080p or absolute max 2K external display, B put the MBP in vertical stand deliberately upside-down with the exhaust vents facing upwards with a smallish regular air circulation fan perpendicular to the MBP to help cool it. MBP will be pushing less pixels, and the inverted positioning with the fan will help cool it.
Sometimes it`s the simple things that work the best
don't expect miracles, equally I bet it offers some improvement. In all honesty if gaming is a big factor just go for a gaming notebook with a 10 Series NVIDIA GPU or build a cheap gaming desktop you will have a far better gaming experience.This is just a GTX 1060 no Mac can compare to this if gaming is your thing...
Q-6
here's a fairly educated guess on the temperatures:
(for reference: 2012 rmbp: base model with no upgrades, 650m | 2016: 512gb, 2.7ghz, pro 460, both the 15" of course. also important: all testing was done on windows and not on macos!)
so here's the deal:
i tested gaming (the division) for 2 hours straight on both devices at the same time in the same conditions. (freshly resetted os, pram, nvram, smc reset everything you can to make it as out of the box as possible. both devices)
results: the 2012 model was getting spikes up to 106° for the cpu and 90° for the gpu.
the 2016 was hovering around (but never exceeded) 100° cpu und 80° for the gpu.
overall temperature was a bit cooler for the 2016, but overall very comparable.
so here's the deal: my 2012 did so much work for me, gaming, rendering videos, editing photos all day long, for four long years, and it did fine. i am, in fact, selling it tomorrow and it runs like a champ. there is no reason for me to believe the 2016 will be any different.
if you wish so, i can provide temperature logs for both devices.
TL;DR:
yes, you can safely game on the 2016 macbook pro.
(for reference: 2012 rmbp: base model with no upgrades, 650m | 2016: 512gb, 2.7ghz, pro 460, both the 15" of course. also important: all testing was done on windows and not on macos!)
so here's the deal:
i tested gaming (the division) for 2 hours straight on both devices at the same time in the same conditions. (freshly resetted os, pram, nvram, smc reset everything you can to make it as out of the box as possible. both devices)
results: the 2012 model was getting spikes up to 106° for the cpu and 90° for the gpu.
the 2016 was hovering around (but never exceeded) 100° cpu und 80° for the gpu.
overall temperature was a bit cooler for the 2016, but overall very comparable.
so here's the deal: my 2012 did so much work for me, gaming, rendering videos, editing photos all day long, for four long years, and it did fine. i am, in fact, selling it tomorrow and it runs like a champ. there is no reason for me to believe the 2016 will be any different.
if you wish so, i can provide temperature logs for both devices.
TL;DR:
yes, you can safely game on the 2016 macbook pro.
This is one of the reasons I didn't complain about my ASUS G55 being close to 1.5" thick in the back, where the heat vents are: It was quieter under its full ~150W load than my MBP was under an 85W load. Because it had enough space for air to move.
Keep in mind, the noise you get is a factor of both how much air is moving, and how much space it has to move in. Machines that need to dissipate heat usually try to have enough space to do so. The MBP line tends to have very small hunks of space for exhaust vents, and thus, they need to push air through pretty fast to stay cool.
Even if the thermal CPU limit is set to 105 C, the surrounding hardware might take damage by prolonged exposure from that kind of heat. The CPU won't of course be working near 100% capacity at all times, but if you do some heavy CPU taxing tasks every day it all adds up over a longer period.
Rossman is very knowledgeable and Im quite sure that he does not fake the test. I have the same specs on my new 15 inch MBP as he has in the video, when I use handbrake my CPU easily hover around 95-97C.
The Idle temperatures on the new 15 inch MBP is lower, that I can agree on.
Handbrake or some other heavy encoding will absolutley make your CPU hotter than 80 degrees. There is no way that you used 100% of all cores and only got 70-80 degrees.
I've used mine this weekend for Warcraft. I ran it on a 34" widescreen 2560x1080 in clamshell mode at the "5" setting in warcraft graphics. Ran right around 50-60 fps with no problems in the raids. I have the 455 in mine and the fans came on but it never became crazy hot or very loud.
Do a little machine learning on the machine. That will run it wide open for 30-40 minutes utilizing every core the machine has.
Would the base ntMBP be able to run this game well?
http://store.steampowered.com/app/365160/
What about similar titles recommending a dGPU as a requirement?
http://store.steampowered.com/app/365160/
What about similar titles recommending a dGPU as a requirement?
Can you link them?
Also what about using something like macs fan control to boost the fans for cooling?
Yes, be pedantic about it instead of doing a bit of research. Threads or posts regarding either temperatures or fan noise come up on the daily around these parts. They get buried quite fast as the question always yields the same answers.
There is one on the first page, right this moment, just look for the word heat with cmd-f, and you'll find this.
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/touch-vs-non-touch-heat-and-fan-noise.2020251/
First off, that thread was posted after mine. Second, he's not even asking about gaming
Has nothing to do with fans. There is just not enough power from the charger.
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...mpletely-while-plugged-in-under-load.2020233/
"The maximum power consumption of the MBP 15 2016 with i7/6700HQ, 16GB Ram, 256GB SSD and AMD Radeon Pro 450 is around 90W (89.5W measured by notebookcheck.net) but if you have i7-6920HQ and Radeon Pro 460 it will be more. The power supply is only 87W and the battery pack is only 76Wh so at high load tasks (playing games) you draw more than >76Wh so at the end you will get less charge and "end of games"..."
so like we all see in the video, the auto-self-protection did kick in when the temperature rise. but at what temperature did it kicked in, is a highly engineered number. I'm sure most laptop manufactures have taken the surround PCB into consideration. plus, the hottest point on CPU is the die, which sits on a plastic PCB base of CPU itself. and plastic isn't really a heat conductor. so the temperature around CPU is a LOT cooler than the CPU core. you can see that if you look at CPU proximity temp.
everything you do to your computer reduces its lifespan. when you turn up the brightness it reduces the life of your display, when the temperature rises, it does reduce the life of those electronic components. but a average lifespan of laptop is like 3-5 years, so I'm not worried about all these.
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and it's not personal or what, but the fact that I remember Rossman once said something about his education in once of his video. I can't quite remember clearly if he finished high school, but pretty sure he didnt go to college.
yes he may be very 'knowledgable', and very good at what he does. but just think, when he's complaining about this about that "from a pro perspective", do you think he is going to out smart a team of highly educated, highly paid, Stanford/berkley PhDs?
yes he can repair laptops at a component level, that's awesome. that alone is far better than most of us (or just me?). have to give him that.
but on the other hand, the manufacturer and designer of those devices, companies like apple, they worked on designing, manufacturing chips, processors. replacing a component on a logic board is like kindergarten in comparison.
so if I have to bet, I'd trust my money with the team of engineers with advance degrees.
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sorry, i was asking two different things. i will look at the article, in reference to the fans, i was asking about the temperatures that gaming would generate.
I`ve had some of my MBP`s transcoding video for literally days at a time, just queued it all up, admittedly they do get pretty hot to the touch
Q-6
n.b. pre 2016 MBP`s
How many years did that laptop last?
I have been running pretty intensive things (like 3-5 days statistical simulations) on my MaBook over the last 7 years, as well as regularly playing games. Never had any single issue.
It`s an Early 2008 (pre unibody) it still runs today, admittedly it`s gone through two sets of fans and the battery exploded, well it expanded and burst the outer case. Keep thinking on tracking down a Mac specialist locally having the internals cleaned, new fans, keyboard top deck and battery as other than that it`s in good shape.
I think the key with these older MBP`s is to elevate the rear when under heavy loads to allow greater air flow. This one must have countless thousands of hours uptime, certainly for the first five years of use it was never tuned off unless Apple forced a restart or I needed to travel with it, and given it`s on Snow Leopard OX X 10.6 that`s a good run of time.
Have equally abused 2011 & 2012 15" MBP`s although the 2011`s dGPU will give out sooner or later. The early 2008 was one of the last of it`s line with some talk that Apple had resolved the non-leaded solder issue with NVIDA, possibly they did as it does get genuinely very hot, yet it keeps on running and remains stock barring the replaced fans.
Q-6