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AltecX

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
So to preface this it's been a while since I've looked into how this hardware actually works so I may be explaining something that already exists in some form.

We know that the Ultra chips would be hard to cool in a laptop form factor, but what if they designed an Ultra chip that functioned like this specifically for the MacBooks.

A Mobile M5 Ultra that would mostly function identically like an M5 Max, but would under some work loads spin up the extra Ultra cores, that would normally be parked, and max out peak speed at say say 75% of the normal Ultra/Max thread speed. That way during most normal use you'd get typical Max power draw, but when doing a job that it knows needs Cores over raw speed it would help push through those work loads. When clock speed is needed more it turns the "ultra" cores off and just runs like a normally Max instead with teh higher cock speed.

Maybe its already doing something like this?? So I'm just explaining how things already work not sure.
 
I'd be wondering what a vapor chamber can do for the cooling in addition to the twin fans. I'm inclined to think it's not a very good idea -- for one thing I think the MBP could stand to have vapor chambers as it is, never mind doubling the processor core count.
 
What you've described has been happening gradually for the past 25 years. Intel/AMD started frequency scaling back in the early 2000s. In 2008, Intel's first gen i5/i7 chips used per-core power gating. By 2015 (Skylake), Intel was doing per-core frequency control. Today, these are all basic features in all notebook and desktop chips including M1.

M5 Ultra in a notebook doesn't exist because M5 Max already exceeds 100W when all CPU and GPU cores are loaded. Apple doesn't want to make a 1-inch thick MacBook and make you haul around a 200W adapter.
 
M5 Ultra in a notebook doesn't exist because M5 Max already exceeds 100W when all CPU and GPU cores are loaded. Apple doesn't want to make a 1-inch thick MacBook and make you haul around a 200W adapter.
Yeah, the closest Apple came to making a portable workstation form factor was the 17" MBP, and we know that didn't sell well enough, since Apple discontinued it.
 
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