Worried about mbp heat problems

[hexdump]

Hi,

I'm going to buy my first mac. I want it to be a mac book pro. My main uses will be programming and audio production. I'm deciding between:

Option1: the new 13" 2.7GHZ (i5 2cores) with 256Flash Storage
Option2: the new 15" 2.2GHZ (i7 4 cores) with 256 Flash Storage.

One of the important points I have considered Option2 over Option1 is that they can turbo bost to 3.5Ghz.

I have been reading about tests and reports from 2011/2012 where heat issues where not allowing MBP to do the turbo boost because the cpu was limiting it based on temparature (too high) and consumption.

Nowadays I'm still reading about heat problems in the new mac book pros so I'm a bit worried. First of all because I don't like to have fans disturbing constantly and second because if this heat issues won't let Turbo boost kick in I prefer to buy Option1 ove Option2.

What do you think? I'm a bit lost here.

Cheers.

 

[chabig]

This is just me, I wouldn't worry about something you read on the internet about heating. The machines are properly designed by professional engineers working for the best notebook manufacturer on the planet. Since they probably have similar computational power, I suggest you consider other things such as how big a machine are you willing to carry around (the 13" is nicer to carry, the 15" is pretty large) and how much screen space do you need (for programming you might prefer the larger screen). Regarding window management, nothing beats OS X in my opinion. I have an 11" Air and although the screen is small, Mission Control, full screen apps, swipe to switch desktops, command-tabbing to specific apps all make managing lots of windows a breeze for me.

 

[yjchua95]

Hi,

I'm going to buy my first mac. I want it to be a mac book pro. My main uses will be programming and audio production. I'm deciding between:

Option1: the new 13" 2.7GHZ (i5 2cores) with 256Flash Storage
Option2: the new 15" 2.2GHZ (i7 4 cores) with 256 Flash Storage.

One of the important points I have considered Option2 over Option1 is that they can turbo bost to 3.5Ghz.

I have been reading about tests and reports from 2011/2012 where heat issues where not allowing MBP to do the turbo boost because the cpu was limiting it based on temparature (too high) and consumption.

Nowadays I'm still reading about heat problems in the new mac book pros so I'm a bit worried. First of all because I don't like to have fans disturbing constantly and second because if this heat issues won't let Turbo boost kick in I prefer to buy Option1 ove Option2.

What do you think? I'm a bit lost here.

Cheers.

If you're doing audio production, you'll need the quad core 15". Logic Pro is multithreaded.

Don't worry about the heat. The rMBPs have far better thermal design than the cMBP.

 

[Queen6]

For audio production anything more than just casual, you will need the 15". Yes heat can be an issue, equally given the performance unsurprising. There is also a lot the user can do to help keep the temperatures manageable, and the fan RPM`s at lower levels.

If you need the 15" it`s elevated operating temperatures and associated fan noise, are part of the trade of for the performance.

Q-6

 

[shoehornhands]

In general, these processors aren't designed with the intention of running turbo boost for any extended period of time. This is exactly the way Intel designed these processors / Apple intended the MBP to function. This is why Intel / Apple only advertise the base frequency as the processor speed and the turbo boost speed is preceded with "up to." In other words, the notion that the processor is somehow overheating because it throttles back to the base frequency is a misconception.

Think about it like this. Say Intel simply capped these chips at 2.2 GHz, 2.5 GHz, 2.8 GHz (similar to the old Core 2 Duo chips that didn't have turbo boost). Now if you run a CPU intensive process (rendering or encoding for example), it might take a minute or two for the cooling system to become fully saturated (i.e. the cooling system, heatsink, aluminum case will gradually heat up and the fans will continue to speed up to compensate).

In the hypothetical scenario above, you have that period of time when the processor is being fully utilized, but the cooling system isn't fully saturated. In other words, a period of time where the cooling system is capable of dissipating more heat (and thus, a window where you could get more performance out of the processor if it permitted such a thing). This is where turbo boost comes in, allowing you to squeeze every last bit of performance out of a computer's cooling system. It's designed to give you that extra performance when it can be tolerated (short bursts) but it's simply not designed to run at that speed indefinitely (if Apple had implemented a more robust cooling system that allowed turbo boost to run indefinitely, then the MBP would likely be thicker / heavier and you'd again have that period of time where more heat can be dissipated, more performance can be realized and thus you now need a turbo boost for the turbo boost).

Anyway, I just wanted to clear up these misconceptions because I see people returning their computer / exchanging it over and over again for what they perceive to be an issue, when in reality this is exactly the way the machine was designed to operate.

 

[hexdump]

Thanks for all the answers.

@chabig : I do not ussually take a simple opinion into account, but I do, when I see lot of people complaining about the same thing, so, sorry, but it is something that really scares and worries me.

@shoehornhands: Thanks for the clarification. From your explanation, it seems that it could be better for me to just get a 2 cores mac computer for programming and buy a powerful PC for around 600$ for audio production because I will ussually get more from 2 cores at 2700 than 4 at 2200 in things like xcode, etc... Don't really know if the 2 core version will be hotter than the 4 cores one, if anyone has any information about this I would be really happy to hear it.

I know XCode is multithreaded but I don't think I will make a real difference if you don't have a really big code base to compile. Anyway, PCH's and distributed builds can always come to the rescue.

What do you think?

https://forums.macrumors.com/members/chabig.11968/

 

[throAU]

Nowadays I'm still reading about heat problems in the new mac book pros so I'm a bit worried. First of all because I don't like to have fans disturbing constantly and second because if this heat issues won't let Turbo boost kick in I prefer to buy Option1 ove Option2.

What do you think? I'm a bit lost here.

Cheers.

I've got a 2015 13" retina.

Heat? My fan rarely comes on. I've done video transcoding and project rendering in GoPro suite and the fan comes on slightly (mostly still inaudible) but the machine stays cool.

99% of the time my fan is on 0 RPM, and the CPU is 37-40 degrees C.

And yes, the difference between the retina 13" and my old 15" 2011 machine is night and day - the fans on that would be on all the time and regularly quite loud. It also gets quite hot to touch.

 

[hexdump]

@throAU: Have you by any chance compared it (heat, noise I mean) to the 2015 15" retina i7-2.2Ghz?

CHeers.

 

[throAU]

@throAU: Have you by any chance compared it (heat, noise I mean) to the 2015 15" retina i7-2.2Ghz?

CHeers.

No i have not. However a friend has had a retina 15" since they came out and it has way way better cooling than my 2011 non-retina 15" does.

A Quad core machine is always going to need to pump out more heat than a dual core though, and the discrete GPU will be even more heat if you go for that.

Those are two of the reasons I want for the 13" even though the spec i bought was not really any cheaper than a 15" machine.

 

[hexdump]

No i have not. However a friend has had a retina 15" since they came out and it has way way better cooling than my 2011 non-retina 15" does.

A Quad core machine is always going to need to pump out more heat than a dual core though, and the discrete GPU will be even more heat if you go for that.

Those are two of the reasons I want for the 13" even though the spec i bought was not really any cheaper than a 15" machine.

Well, this specific machine I told you don't have a discrete gpu. It is a poor iris pro .The dGpu comes with the top tier

Cheers.

 

[Queen6]

Owning both 13" & 15" Retina`s the 13" runs significantly cooler across the "board" The 15" will only be faster if applications can take advantage of the Quad Core CPU and or dGPU, equally with suitable Applications the 15" Retina is significantly faster.

If you do not need the performance of the 15" on the go frequently, the 13" is an excellent choice, being Apple`s most balanced Notebook. The cost saving can easily cover a desktop for the heavy lifting.

Q-6

 

[throAU]

Well, this specific machine I told you don't have a discrete gpu. It is a poor iris pro .The dGpu comes with the top tier

Cheers.

My bad. The cooling situation should be more than adequate then - the 15' machine is designed to support TDP of about 90 watts (CPU + GPU of around 45 watt or so each), so without the dGPU in it, it won't be getting very hot at all i suspect (because about half the heat generation is gone).

I did consider a 15" Iris Pro machine instead of the 13 i just bought, but I have a quad core desktop i can do the heavier stuff on (or my old 15" i7) anyway if needed. Not that the 13" is a slouch by any measure...

And yeah, the 13" rMBP is an excellent, well rounded machine. Quiet, cool, reasonable to carry around, etc.

 

[snaky69]

Nowadays I'm still reading about heat problems in the new mac book pros so I'm a bit worried. First of all because I don't like to have fans disturbing constantly and second because if this heat issues won't let Turbo boost kick in I prefer to buy Option1 ove Option2.

What do you think? I'm a bit lost here.

Cheers.

This myth needs to die.

People keep claiming their MBP run hot whereas they don't. The chassis is made of aluminum, which is an excellent heat conductor. Most other laptops are plastic, which is not. For any given (operating) temperature, the MBP will ALWAYS feel warmer to the touch than a plastic notebook. That's just how heat transfer works. People assume that because their fans come on and the laptop feels warm, or even hot to the touch that it is overheating, whereas it is simply working as designed.

Your turbo boost will kick in just fine. You will not notice any throttling unless all you do 24/7 is peg all cores at 100%.