[chendragon]

Modern Intel notebook processors like these are likely running close to 80W and 65 steady state - They've got up to 8 cores to do this. Measurements by Notebookcheck seem to suggest that the MacBook Pro is already doing fairly well compared to PC OEM solutions, especially given the size of the enclosure and the fact that unlike Asus in the Zephyrus, they're not using 12V server level 60dBa fans in a laptop.

Where I think the MacBook Pro could do better is if they adopted more of a vapor chamber strategy for the heatsink, but as you mentioned the radiators are probably going to be the limiting factor, seeing as there's really not a huge temperature delta going on here.

I suppose one strategy could be to perhaps up the fan speed yet again, maybe at the cost of a little bit more noise, and use heat sinks with fins as finely pitched as the MacBook Air. Of course this will make the heat sink more heavy and expensive, but given the robustness of old Thinkpads that did not go easy on the copper, it could work.