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Just bought 14in M5 MacBook Pro (base)... will it overheat?

Dust-by-Monday

Dust-by-Monday

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
I've been reading about potential issues with the M5 MacBook Pro, specifically about the 14" screen right after I just ordered one.

How bad is the overheating issue? Right now I have the M2 MacBook Air (256GB) and it never gets hot for me even when I've been using Logic Pro.

Will I be fine with the M5 MacBook Pro?

Ya'll got me worried now.
 
I don't push mine particularly hard but I've had zero issues with my mine. I'm not sure I've ever even noticed the fan except maybe during initial set up. If you have no issues with your passively cooled M2 Air I doubt you'll notice much with the M5 MacBook especially since it has a fan. It's a phenomenal machine - hope it works well for you!
 
If you are referring to the M5 with 10-Core CPU/10-Core GPU, overheating shouldn't be an issue, even if you use it in clamshell mode. I tested out the M5 (10-Core "base"), M5 Pro 15-Core, and M5 Pro 18-Core (my current machine) in both 14" and 16" sizes. The 14" base M5 fan only came on when I ran a 20-minute Cinebench benchmark and when I ran 3DMark Steel Nomad benchmark multiple times. The M5 base should be the coolest running of the M5 family even in a 14" chassis. It got warm during benchmarks, but nothing like the M5 Pro/Max chips.

If you ordered from Apple, you have a 14-day return window. Load up your software and run your usual tasks. You'll find out quickly if it runs hot or overheats.
 
Halbrand said:
Different computer but the 14" M5 Pro was overheating for me just using Pages.
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I think 'overheating' might mean different things to us. Were the fans screaming, and the system throttling to manage it, or was it just warmer than expected? Because that is most definitely not normal.
 
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I put the 14” M5 Pro through various tests and apps when I was deciding on a 16” vs 14” M5 Pro. I didn’t notice the 14” “overheat” during normal app use. Fans only came on during Cinebench and 3DMark benchmarks. As @Luftkopf asked, what is your definition of “overheat?”
 
I have an M3 Pro, so it’s not heaps relevant to this discussion, but I’ve tuned my fans much more aggressively, so they spin up earlier and faster. Running an LLM, playing video games, or blender, or whatever, my system rarely hits 70°C now. Left to Apple’s default it would hit 100° and the fans wouldn’t even be running that hard, aside from short spells.

It was similar with my i7 MacBook Air. The fans on that were on all the time, obviously, but since they always prioritise low noise over effective cooling, they allowed a fair bit of heat to accumulate before spinning up the fans, and would throttle the CPU before maxing the fan speed.

This isn’t necessary on M series machines, because they actually do eventually run the fans when needed, and if it’s summer and you have no A/C, are flogging the ever-living crap out of your machine, and it’s sitting in the sun, and there is just too much heat, they throttle pretty elegantly, so it doesn’t actually really overheat.

I’m just a nerd who likes playing with things.
 
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So far with default settings, the highest temp I've noticed is 78º on my 16" M5 Pro and the fastest fan speeds have been 25% during local LLM use in clamshell mode. Just ran Steel Nomad benchmark while writing this post and temp got to 79º and fan 10%. That's with Safari (8 tabs), Mail, Preview, Excel, Messages open again in clamshell mode. My 2019 would be running at 95º-100º and 100% fans with the same workload.
 
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conmee said:
So far with default settings, the highest temp I've noticed is 78º on my 16" M5 Pro and the fastest fan speeds have been 25% during local LLM use in clamshell mode. Just ran Steel Nomad benchmark while writing this post and temp got to 79º and fan 10%. That's with Safari (8 tabs), Mail, Preview, Excel, Messages open again in clamshell mode. My 2019 would be running at 95º-100º and 100% fans with the same workload.
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Yeah, my M3 Pro would hit 100º in sustained gaming, like letting Farming Simulator run for 6 hours because I've set a tractor to work some massive fields. Whenever it did though, the fans would spin up more for a while. It was fine, honestly. I'm just a nerd who wants to control these things. My fans now spin up around 50º now, and I've not seen it get past 70º even after hours of pushing it.

I find the M series machines to be rather impressive.
 
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If your fanless M2 MacBook Air handles your Logic Pro sessions without getting hot, the 14-inch base M5 MacBook Pro will breeze through the exact same workload.

The overheating reports you are reading almost certainly refer to the higher-tier M5 Pro or M5 Max chips being pushed to their absolute limits in the smaller 14-inch chassis. By contrast, the base M5 runs significantly cooler.
 
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Dust-by-Monday said:
Just got my MacBook Pro. It runs like a dream. Sorry I was worried about nothing haha. The internet gets to me sometimes.
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Pretty much ignore anyone who claims it "overheats". It doesn't. Tech enthusiast YouTubers do the biggest rookie mistake of running benchmark software and acting like it's truth and it never is. Benchmark software will always max out everything on a system it's what it's designed to do. Real software is optimized and doesn't do that stuff.

As for "overheating", if your machine isn't shutting itself down or you're not getting graphics glitches it's not overheating. Too many people (tech YouTubers included) think fans kicking on or heating up is overheating and it's not, it's normal operation.
 
I think the "cheat code" for the M5 is to attack tasks so quickly that by the time heat has started to build up, the task is over. That's certainly my experience so far on the M5 Max, except when I'm doing AI, but even then, so long as you're not trying to use LM Studio which seems to be violently incompatible with the M5, it is well controlled. For background tasks like big Photo directory merges, it really is amazing, it holds at 40 celsius or under without fans for a lot of stuff.
 
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the only times ive felt my MBP get warm/hot is when im running local LLMs, big handbrake renders or multiple containers simultaneously.
 
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