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Is the 2012 Macbook Pro 13-inch cooler than the 2011?

K

kurtjunk

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 24, 2012
1
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About a week ago, my Windows laptop completely broke (hardware failure) and I've been thinking about getting a Macbook. Fortunately, my university offers free Macbook rentals. For the past week, I've been using a 2011 13-inch Macbook Pro.

I've had major problems with heat on the 2011 Macbook. Frankly, it has been uncomfortable to use at times. Right now, I have Pandora playing in the background and a few other tabs open, and the CPU temperature has been around 90C. I understand flash does make CPUs run hotter, but I never had this problem with my Windows PC.

I did a little searching around to see if the 2012 Macbook Pro 13-inchers are cooler than their 2011 counterparts... but I wasn't able to find much. Have people found the 2012 Macbook Pros to be significantly cooler than the 2011 models?
 
They all feel hot because aluminium acts as a heatsink to dissipate heat.

On many older computers, namely other brands like Dell, HP, and whatnot, they are mostly plastic; plastic isn't a good conductor of heat.
 
All Mac notebooks can get hot under heavy load. It doesn't matter if it's a MacBook, MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, 11/13/15/17", etc.

Apple Portables: Operating temperature
The bottom of your Apple portable may become warm during normal use. If the computer is on your lap and gets uncomfortably warm, remove it from your lap and place it on a stable surface.
Click to expand...
 
kurtjunk said:
Have people found the 2012 Macbook Pros to be significantly cooler than the 2011 models?
Click to expand...

I had an early 2011 13" Macbook Pro and now the 2012 13" Macbook Air and the new Air is significantly cooler on my lap when performing CPU intensive tasks. The same tasks that would get hot in my lap and ramp up the fans now barely warm my lap at all and the fans don't perceivably ramp.

Given the design limitations of the Air vs. Pro, I would think the Pro would be at least as cool as the Air. Hope this helps some.
 
Yes

I use the macbook pro early 2011 at home.

For university I got the macbook Pro 2012 - the one that came out in April.

It is miles cooler. I don't know if I've just been lucky. I have it in a speck case (which apparently makes it hotter) and I can watch 1080P videos on youtube for well over 1 hour and it's only just loop warm. I often use it in just my boxers and it doesn't burn my legs or anything whilst on my bed.

I think the new 3rd gen i5 processors just work so much cooler.

I upgraded to 16GB ram recently too and it's no hotter!
 
ukhardy07 said:
I use the macbook pro early 2011 at home.

For university I got the macbook Pro 2012 - the one that came out in April.

It is miles cooler. I don't know if I've just been lucky. I have it in a speck case (which apparently makes it hotter) and I can watch 1080P videos on youtube for well over 1 hour and it's only just loop warm. I often use it in just my boxers and it doesn't burn my legs or anything whilst on my bed.

I think the new 3rd gen i5 processors just work so much cooler.

I upgraded to 16GB ram recently too and it's no hotter!
Click to expand...

How about when using it to render stuff in iMovie or Blender?
 
I only very occasionally notice my 2011 MBP getting hot - and that's with lots of apps and a VM running.
 
I have both the 13 and 15" rMBP (one is for gf), having previously owned 2010s. My 2010 15" under load would literally burn my leg (which is by design, not complaining, I'd rather have a toasty laptop than a slow one), but the retinas are both cooler on the bottom, I can play 3d games with the laptop on my lap, it gets warm, but not hot. The strip above the keyboard on the top gets a lot hotter than the 2010, but it doesn't bother me as I'm not in contact with it.
 
nephilim7 said:
I have both the 13 and 15" rMBP (one is for gf), having previously owned 2010s. My 2010 15" under load would literally burn my leg (which is by design, not complaining, I'd rather have a toasty laptop than a slow one), but the retinas are both cooler on the bottom, I can play 3d games with the laptop on my lap, it gets warm, but not hot. The strip above the keyboard on the top gets a lot hotter than the 2010, but it doesn't bother me as I'm not in contact with it.
Click to expand...

Same experince for me with the 15" rMBP. Warm but never hot when rendering movies using Compressor.
 
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