Have heat issues been solved?

[rsarno]

I have a Dell Studio XPS 1640 (16") and when i fire up Warcraft, the fans ignite and are noisy as all heck

Anyhow i have a business expense i can spend and im looking to get my first macbook. Money doesnt matter much .. but i was leaning towards MBP so i have ability to upgrade stuff if/when needed.

But i read the rMBP runs cooler and quieter?

The reason im posting this is because most of the reviews i read that spooked me, were from June. I was wondering if possibly the heat & fan noise issues have been squashed by now in the standard MBP

thanks

 

[GGJstudios]

I have a Dell Studio XPS 1640 (16") and when i fire up Warcraft, the fans ignite and are noisy as all heck

Anyhow i have a business expense i can spend and im looking to get my first macbook. Money doesnt matter much .. but i was leaning towards MBP so i have ability to upgrade stuff if/when needed.

But i read the rMBP runs cooler and quieter?

The reason im posting this is because most of the reviews i read that spooked me, were from June. I was wondering if possibly the heat & fan noise issues have been squashed by now in the standard MBP

thanks

Read this post just made in another thread.

 

[rsarno]

Read this post just made in another thread.

Thanks for the link. I should have been more specific .. i dont really care how hot the unit gets lol, but i dont want to be annoyed with the fan noise as i am with my Dell.

I asked if the heat issues have been resolved, in hopes it would eliminate the need to run noisy fans constantly while in heavy use.

 

[mrsir2009]

Thanks for the link. I should have been more specific .. i dont really care how hot the unit gets lol, but i dont want to be annoyed with the fan noise as i am with my Dell.

I asked if the heat issues have been resolved, in hopes it would eliminate the need to run noisy fans constantly while in heavy use.

If the computer gets hot the fans WILL spin up - The only way to prevent the fans from spinning up is to keep the MacBook cool.

 

[GGJstudios]

Thanks for the link. I should have been more specific .. i dont really care how hot the unit gets lol, but i dont want to be annoyed with the fan noise as i am with my Dell.

I asked if the heat issues have been resolved, in hopes it would eliminate the need to run noisy fans constantly while in heavy use.

As that post indicates, fans will speed up as necessary with increased heat, to keep temps in a safe operating range. How much or how often depends on the load you put on the system.

 

[T5BRICK]

I asked if the heat issues have been resolved, in hopes it would eliminate the need to run noisy fans constantly while in heavy use.

If you're gaming on a laptop, of course the fans are going to speed up. A desktop computer has more space to place large, slow fans that can still move a lot of air, simply because of their size. A laptop, especially something in a fairly slim chassis, has to move the air with a couple of tiny fans, so they have to spin fast just to keep up.

If noise is an issue, there are resources out there. I used to do a lot of reading over at silentpcreview. I'm not sure how much that'll help with a laptop though.

 

[throAU]

Any laptop, running full speed is going to get warm.

 

[Queen6]

Another post closer to the subject; fan noise, intrusion

https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=16036080#post16036080

 

[MMcCraryNJ]

I have a Dell Studio XPS 1640 (16") and when i fire up Warcraft, the fans ignite and are noisy as all heck

Anyhow i have a business expense i can spend and im looking to get my first macbook. Money doesnt matter much .. but i was leaning towards MBP so i have ability to upgrade stuff if/when needed.

But i read the rMBP runs cooler and quieter?

The reason im posting this is because most of the reviews i read that spooked me, were from June. I was wondering if possibly the heat & fan noise issues have been squashed by now in the standard MBP

thanks

You have the same exact same setup I do my friend.

I have a Studio XPS 1640, with the sweet 1080p RGBLED screen, the fastest possible C2D proc they were offering at the time, 8 GB of RAM, and I had put in an Intel SSD last year.

The fan loudness was the only drawback to the Dell, and I totally understand where you are coming from. Sounds almost like a blow dryer at times!

Two weeks ago I bought a new mid 2012 MBP, non-Retina. I upgraded to the 2.7 Core i7, the Hi-Res screen, and got the 120 GB SSD option. The fans are nowhere near as loud, even when they come on full blast. I do a lot of pro audio work and have taxed the CPU pretty well and got the fans to spin, it was really nothing.

I didn't go for the Retina model because of a bunch of reasons. I don't think it was ready for mainstream just yet. Tons of issues. And like you said (and this was the major reason for my decision as well), there are no replaceable parts in the Retina model.

My mom now has my Dell, which is still working like it was brand new. I love that PC, aside from the fan noise.

If your only concern is the heat/fan, go for the non-Retina MBP with an SSD. It's really not an issue, and I can't see the rMBP running any cooler or less-noisy.

 

[theSeb]

Just because a computer is not shutting down, it does not mean that the cooling system is adequate or that there are no cooling issues. I'll be doing more testing on this and posting a full article of my findings in the near future (unfortunately monitoring real-time frequencies in OS X is harder then it should be - I've managed to do it on a 2011 MBA, but I am currently unable to do it on the 2012 rMBP so will probably revert to VM + Windows), but the cooling system in the current MBPs and MBAs appears to be inadequate.

Turbo boost is constantly throttled back, which is not an ideal scenario. In order to make full use of Turbo Boost, the MBP's cooling system should be keeping the CPU below 90 degrees Celsius. It is not able to do this and therefore I believe that there is a cooling issue that Apple needs to address. It is not impossible. Other, smaller, manufacturers with less resources are able to do this. Therefore there is no excuse for Apple.

 

[rsarno]

This is EXACTLY the feedback i was looking for, thank you so much for chiming in.

You are right, the Dell 1640 is insane! It gets so annoying when playing my Warcraft, that id really rather not even play just so i dont hear the noise lol.

I do have a question for you (and others). I was not considering upgrading to the SSD immediately, as it is a good chunk of money that id rather put off since the holidays are coming up and can use that money elsewhere

What noticeable differences would there be with an SSD vs Optical? Heat and speed aren't really a concern for me, unless as said above .. the fans are super annoying when spinning.

If its just a factor of R/W speeds, i can pass on it.

Thank you!

You have the same exact same setup I do my friend.

I have a Studio XPS 1640, with the sweet 1080p RGBLED screen, the fastest possible C2D proc they were offering at the time, 8 GB of RAM, and I had put in an Intel SSD last year.

The fan loudness was the only drawback to the Dell, and I totally understand where you are coming from. Sounds almost like a blow dryer at times!

Two weeks ago I bought a new mid 2012 MBP, non-Retina. I upgraded to the 2.7 Core i7, the Hi-Res screen, and got the 120 GB SSD option. The fans are nowhere near as loud, even when they come on full blast. I do a lot of pro audio work and have taxed the CPU pretty well and got the fans to spin, it was really nothing.

I didn't go for the Retina model because of a bunch of reasons. I don't think it was ready for mainstream just yet. Tons of issues. And like you said (and this was the major reason for my decision as well), there are no replaceable parts in the Retina model.

My mom now has my Dell, which is still working like it was brand new. I love that PC, aside from the fan noise.

If your only concern is the heat/fan, go for the non-Retina MBP with an SSD. It's really not an issue, and I can't see the rMBP running any cooler or less-noisy.

 

[MMcCraryNJ]

This is EXACTLY the feedback i was looking for, thank you so much for chiming in.

You are right, the Dell 1640 is insane! It gets so annoying when playing my Warcraft, that id really rather not even play just so i dont hear the noise lol.

I do have a question for you (and others). I was not considering upgrading to the SSD immediately, as it is a good chunk of money that id rather put off since the holidays are coming up and can use that money elsewhere

What noticeable differences would there be with an SSD vs Optical? Heat and speed aren't really a concern for me, unless as said above .. the fans are super annoying when spinning.

If its just a factor of R/W speeds, i can pass on it.

Thank you!

This is my first Macbook, so I can't really comment on what using a standard hard drive would do to affect how the fans on it in particular would spin up.

What I do know is that in most cases, SSDs usually do run quite a bit cooler and a lot less noisy than traditional spinning drives. As an affect, that can only reduce the amount of heat that builds up in the system, which should cause the fans to spin up less than they normally do.

To give you an idea, I had a 500 GB 7200 RPM drive in my Dell when I bought it, and I replaced that with a 160 GB Intel SSD. Immediately I noticed that the front of the computer where the hard drive resides ran much much cooler, it was a noticeable difference. During heavy data access with the HDD, the fans on the Dell would immediately go up to full blast, but the same data access on the SSD would not have the same effect. The system in general ran much cooler and more efficiently (my battery life jumped to 7-8 hours, up from 4 or so).

Getting an SSD, I think is the biggest upgrade one can do, especially on a laptop. But again, since you're looking at the standard MBP rather than the Retina, you can always go for the regular drive for now and then buy your own SSD down the road.

 

[Entopia7]

Remember, too, that the rMBP has a revised cooling scheme with extra vents and tweaked fans. In my experience, playing WoW at 1920x1200 with a capped 30FPS, the noise is never really annoying. The machine will push 50-60 fps, but the noise and heat is kept in check if the frames are capped.

 

[Snowshiro]

I play WoW frequently on my rMBP. It runs fine at native resolution with a few settings turned down and looks amazing. The fans spin up pretty high though and the keyboard gets super hot around where the cpu and gpu are located.

Personally I don't consider it a serious issue - I wear in-ear headphones anyway when playing, so I don't hear the fan sound, and the heat isn't something that bothers me much. I also used to play for many years on my old Mac Pro with a GT8800 which sounded like a hovercraft was driving through my room whenever I fired up a game on it.

It depends what you're expecting - if you want something that will play WoW more or less silently, this probably isn't it.