Thermal analysis of unibody Macbooks?

[icanhazapple]

I did a quick Google search to see if there were any articles that might touch upon the fact that the new unibody Macbooks/MBP's have a much lower thermal envelope; I would suspect that the ability to dissipate heat in a unibody is much greater than the cases of previous generations.

Unfortunately, the results back from Google were mostly articles about problems with the 17' MBP GPU issues and thermal paste being applied incorrectly.

Does anyone know of an article that has data with respect to the unibody's ability to dissipate heat?

I have a theory that in the long run this would generate a lower failure rate for GPU's and logic boards on the computer. Less heat is typically a good thing for a laptop.

Thanks.

 

[MBHockey]

I'm very interested in this too.

Having just switched from a MBP Classic to a Unibody MacBook, I can tell you that it runs 12-18 degrees cooler on average (bottom casing) than the MBP. The cooling system in this MacBook is quite impressive, considering I can watch episodes on Hulu.com with the MacBook on top of a down blanket and never have the fans need to go above 2000 RPM (all with it having a higher clocked CPU, by 200 MHz).

Of course, this is all anecdotal. I'd be very interested to hear something more formal and scientific.

 

[shady825]

I can watch episodes on Hulu.com with the MacBook on top of a down blanket

I wouldnt do that too much! The blanket could easily 'clog' the exhaust vent.
My neighbor killed her IBM doing that.

 

[MBHockey]

I wouldnt do that too much! The blanket could easily 'clog' the exhaust vent.
My neighbor killed her IBM doing that.

I'm aware. It was more of an experiment than anything.

Conclusion: Most of the heat isn't dissipated by the bottom casing (as was the case in the MBP).