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Vapor chamber in macbook pro ?
- Thread starter thomasthegps
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Yes but it wouldn't make much of a difference. You have to understand that cooling is a process, and not a magical enchantment you can just enhance with stronger "cooling" parts.
Besides, a "vapor chamber" is just a square shaped heat pipe, which the MacBook already has.
Of course it could, but they didn't. Maybe they will in the future, who knows.
Well apparently a vapor chamber is much more efficient than heat pipes because there is more surface area to transfer heat. Maybe the issue is with the heat transfer from the cpu to the heatsink and not the fans, in which case a vapor chamber would help.
Yes, the Razer has one, and it has a much more potent GPU, yet it doesn't have thermal issues that the MBP has.
I think its a good move, and I wished Apple did embrace it
It has all of the "issues" of the MBP in this regard — its CPU doesn't seem to get any more thermal headroom and it goes experiences comparable degree of thermal throttling.
Source: https://www.notebookcheck.net/Razer-Blade-15-i7-8750H-GTX-1070-Max-Q-FHD-Laptop-Review.305426.0.html
And besides, there are no thermal issues. The performance is good, the CPUs are operating over their base frequency under sustained high loads, nothing is burning or exploding.
Yes, well that may be the case, and it also means the vapor chamber takes up a lot more room in the chassis. Also, just sticking a vapor chamber on a hot device does nothing to cool it, you also need heatsink fins attached to it, and that takes up even more room. You also need a fan/s capable of pushing sufficient airflow through the larger cooling apparatus to make a difference, which also takes up additional room...
Apple already uses wide flat heatpipes which are like elongated vapor chambers; they're equipped with heatsinks only at the ends, where there's room for them, as well as for airflow going through them. Vapor chambers aren't a magic wand that vanishes heat into thin air. Just ask the trashcan Mac Pro!
I have to disagree, as I was using the Razer and comparing it to the MBP, it ran cooler. It still ran warm, and it can get toasty, but that laptop could do things the MBP could never, i.e., play top level games.
What does "run cooler" even mean in this context? It has the same CPU as the MBP and it has a larger GPU — so it can't run cooler by definition, since its going to output more heat. Third-party tests shows that its not any better at cooling the CPU compared to the MBP. I am not talking about subjective opinions here, its a measurable fact. Dell XPS is slightly better at cooling the CPU and then of course you have all the ridiculously large gaming laptops which allow the CPU to be around 20% faster still.
And of course it is better at playing games! Its GPU is like four times faster! But what does this fact have to do with CPU cooling?
@Plutonius
NNNOOOOO!!! Out with the pitchforks and torches people, true Apple fans only accept thinner and thinner devices!
NNNOOOOO!!! Out with the pitchforks and torches people, true Apple fans only accept thinner and thinner devices!
Simple, it does not thermally throttle even with that powerful GPU and its vapor chamber. I think you're reading too much into this.
The main problem is the small headroom that wouldn't allow for long before heat trapping kicks in. If anyone cares to, feel free to remove the bottom case and benchmark the laptop performance and compared it with a closed case, preferably with a decent and properly used TIM if possible.
As for games, well, Apple uses a rather mundance gpu on their top of the line MBPs, if they had used any chip that could crunch TFLOPs like say a 1060 could, it's bound to throttle even more.
And if things haven't changed, the CPU and dGPU share the same heat sink pipeline in MBP's design, meaning one would affect the other (on my 2012 rMBP device constant 90c+ on cpu could push the GPU to 60c+ according to the sensors even when the iGPU is being used). You had to play thermal gymnastics using third party tools like throttlestop and nvidia inspector and alter so many settings just so you could minimize the throttling during gaming sessions, and even then it's bound to eventually happen, even if more infrequently so.
I can see why Apple would shy away from using higher end mGPUs available today, they are overkill energy and heat generation-wise in a laptop as thin as the current iteration of MBP, especially the i9-equipped ones. Their decision to provide official and expanded eGPU support going forwards is both an alternative solution and a telltale sign of things to come ie continuing the trend of using low-powered dGPU in a thermally-constrained design.
You look at something like the Surface Book 2 which has a decent enough nvidia gpu while remaining usably thin, and just wish Apple would offer a similar product. Granted, Microsoft has an incentive to offer one given their gaming market dominance with Windows and DirectX, but that doesn't totally absolve Apple lackluster offerings, especially now that they've invested in improving Metal and VR, and mature cross-platform APIs are around the corning.
As for games, well, Apple uses a rather mundance gpu on their top of the line MBPs, if they had used any chip that could crunch TFLOPs like say a 1060 could, it's bound to throttle even more.
And if things haven't changed, the CPU and dGPU share the same heat sink pipeline in MBP's design, meaning one would affect the other (on my 2012 rMBP device constant 90c+ on cpu could push the GPU to 60c+ according to the sensors even when the iGPU is being used). You had to play thermal gymnastics using third party tools like throttlestop and nvidia inspector and alter so many settings just so you could minimize the throttling during gaming sessions, and even then it's bound to eventually happen, even if more infrequently so.
I can see why Apple would shy away from using higher end mGPUs available today, they are overkill energy and heat generation-wise in a laptop as thin as the current iteration of MBP, especially the i9-equipped ones. Their decision to provide official and expanded eGPU support going forwards is both an alternative solution and a telltale sign of things to come ie continuing the trend of using low-powered dGPU in a thermally-constrained design.
You look at something like the Surface Book 2 which has a decent enough nvidia gpu while remaining usably thin, and just wish Apple would offer a similar product. Granted, Microsoft has an incentive to offer one given their gaming market dominance with Windows and DirectX, but that doesn't totally absolve Apple lackluster offerings, especially now that they've invested in improving Metal and VR, and mature cross-platform APIs are around the corning.
The MBP doesn't throttle either
I'm really confused about the point you are trying to make.
No, unless Apple produces a larger chassis for the i9. Vapour chambers do improve cooling efficiency, however you still need to shed the heat. So the whole cooling system must be capable of not being overwhelmed by the CPU's TDP.
On the Razer, same as my primary it's designed for performance, with a more substantial cooling solution than the MBP, so I would expect it to run cooler and not throttle under CPU only bound workloads. Some OEM's bolstered their cooling solutions for the 8th Gen CPU's Apple chose not to simple as that.
With Intel's 8th Gen CPU's the short-term Turbo limit was raised to a minimum of 90W if the cooling system is not capable or the power train then optimal CPU performance is to attainable.
Q-6
On the Razer, same as my primary it's designed for performance, with a more substantial cooling solution than the MBP, so I would expect it to run cooler and not throttle under CPU only bound workloads. Some OEM's bolstered their cooling solutions for the 8th Gen CPU's Apple chose not to simple as that.
With Intel's 8th Gen CPU's the short-term Turbo limit was raised to a minimum of 90W if the cooling system is not capable or the power train then optimal CPU performance is to attainable.
Q-6
Which SB2 achieves by a) using a low-wattage CPU (even in the 15" model) and b) placing the CPU and the GPU into different compartments, each of which is almost as thick as the entire MBP. The SB has to sacrifice a lot in order to get that powerful GPU in.
The MBP doesn't throttle either
No your not your just trying to be smart, and playing with semantics. The 2018 MBP's may technically not throttle, equally they are not capable of reaching max performance, just like you were bragging how the 2016 model could hold full Turbo indefinitely, now the 2018 MBP has issue the narrative is a full 180...
Bottom line is the 2018 MBP design forbids maximum performance of the CPU, as under load it will roll back the CPU frequency to as much as base clock or less in some circumstance. The more pertinent question "is the performance on hand adequate for the users needs?". Like it or loath it the Windows systems will offer more performance due to better cooling solutions and simply more thermal headroom.
8th Gen 8750H with adequate power & cooling solution. This is a 17" equally many 15" notebooks accomplish the same, nor are they 10lb behemoths.
The 2018 MBP isn't a bad design, equally it's not a performance centric notebook by todays standards...
Q-6
Yes, well that may be the case, and it also means the vapor chamber takes up a lot more room in the chassis. Also, just sticking a vapor chamber on a hot device does nothing to cool it, you also need heatsink fins attached to it, and that takes up even more room. You also need a fan/s capable of pushing sufficient airflow through the larger cooling apparatus to make a difference, which also takes up additional room...
Apple already uses wide flat heatpipes which are like elongated vapor chambers; they're equipped with heatsinks only at the ends, where there's room for them, as well as for airflow going through them. Vapor chambers aren't a magic wand that vanishes heat into thin air. Just ask the trashcan Mac Pro!
Have I ever said that a vapor chamber turned heat into thin air ? Whatever that means... When you say it takes more room, well maybe apple can create more room. You're response seems to be based on a lot of assumptions:
1) It would take more room
2) The current fans couldn't keep up with the heat load.
Have you looked at the new razor blade vapor chamber design? It's pretty small... And it is cooling a GPU that has a much higher TDP than the wimpy 560X
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It stands to reason that the fans on the macbook are capable of blowing out more heat than they currently are. When people apply liquid metal thermal paste, the temperature drops considerably, so my thinking is that the bottleneck in heat dissipation is located between the cpu and the heatsink not the exhaust fans. So I'm not sure what you mean when you say the heatsink would be overwhelmed. Theoretically if the heatsink is more efficient at absorbing heat with the same fans you should be able to get lower temperatures.
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I didn't mean to imply that you had, sorry for any confusion I may have caused. I just wanted to point out that vapor chambers aren't a universal fix-all to everything whereas heat is concerned. There's pros and cons to everything. That's all.
True, the CPU isn't as powerful, but the combination of CPU+GPU unquestionably is. Call it smarter design and choice of components if you will. Remember that the SB2 is a year old machine. Its i7 CPU is about 5-10% slower than the 2017 MBP i7, yet the dGPU is twice as fast. I'll take that 10/10, both for gaming and non-gaming purposes.
The chassis is definitely thicker, about 5mm thicker on average. Weight is about the same. Hardly a huge sacrifice to the average user or most users. Using Windows and losing the functionality of OSX on the other hand...
I'm speaking generally. You would need to apply LM and likely tweak the fan curves (the latter I always do). With stock paste the current cooling solution holds down the CPU. As for LM Apple is the sticking point in the event of any issue "you opened it, you modified it, likely your problem" with a $3K - $4K notebook may prove a little too risky...
Q-6
You are twisting the topic though. The argument that maflynn was making (and what I was responding to) is that Razer Blade is better at cooling the CPU. Which it isn't, since its getting 900 points in Cinebench sustained runs (which is more or less on par with the MBP using the same CPU, and certainly on a lower end of comparable laptops). Yes, a laptop with a desktop-class cooling like your ASUS will of course give the CPU more room for boosting, nobody argues against it.
I'm sorry but my first hand experience is that it does a better job.
[doublepost=1536081233][/doublepost]Let me just add that in macOS, I run Volta to artificially throttle the laptop to keep the temps under 80c. Even so Lightroom causes my laptop to jump to 85c and I'm idling in the 50 to 60c range. Of course today the ambient temps are 30c, so its quite toasty.
In windows the MBP easily hits 80 to 90c doing very little. Yes apple doesn't really optimize their drivers, and so it runs hotter.
With the Razer and using Lightroom, I was seeing temps in the 70c range (I got it down to the 60 range with XTU) and that's with a superior GPU (that produces more heat). The bit of gaming I did, I got in the 80 to 90c range, but absolutely no throttling. The MBP is not a gaming rig, so I didn't even bother, but then I'm not even going to attempt it, since I'm seeing high temps in windows anyways.
I can only report what I see. We are all entitled to our opinions, and mine is that the Razer with its vapor chamber offers superior cooling then the MBP's heat pipes.
And about this: back then, Intel published max full core turbo boost. They don't do it anymore. I have no idea if they changed anything under the hood or whether its just a marketing thing, but "turbo" with the new CPUs is basically what max single core turbo used to be.
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You'll have to forgive me then that I trust a well-known hardware reviewer (who use tests with well explained methodology and testing context) then your unquantified first hand experience. You can't tell me that MBP experiences throttling and Blade doesn't, if Blade doesn't do any better in sustained CPU tests. It might run cooler doing that (which would simply mean that Razer temperature-throttles it), but what is relevant if you want to discuss throttling is the performance and its dynamics, not temperatures. If one machine throttles, then the one that doesn't will be faster, plain and simple. Since its not faster, it either throttles as well or the first machine isn't throttling in the first place.
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There is absolutely no question that Razer Blade has superior cooling. It simply has to — in order to cool down the GPU. And Razer dedicates a lot of the laptop's internal space to cooling, trading battery capacity for that. However, better cooling or not, it doesn't actually do anything to improve the CPU performance, for whatever reason. So given the fact that this thread discusses potential improvements in MBP's CPU performance, I hardly see how Blade can be quoted as a superior laptop — in this particular context of course.
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