[xgbi]

This doesn't make sense, and I'm a bit worried: I "cheaped" out and have a "left side only USB-C" MBPro from 2019.

Should I understand that having any kind of load on the measly 2 ports I have on my 1600€ computer will lead to abysmal performance? Like, attaching a USB hub to add basic necessity like HDMI or USB A?

[discardable_dan]

I have a 2019 MBP that runs hot because it's supporting an external monitor. The year before every laptop became a WFH desktop, Apple decided that running an external monitor could be a massive heat issue and nobody would care. It's literally burning out my work laptop, and soon I'll have to ask IT for a new one. Apple doesn't care, though: they already got paid.

As I understand it, though, most of the thermal issues are to do with the north bridge and the video card. Basically, Intel's power model for USB is built around performance, not thermals. GamersNexus actually has some interesting videos about this, but at the end of the day Intel shit the bed on northbridge performance while developing USB-4 support.

I wildly speculate that this is a massive part of why Apple moved to their own silicon: to get away from Intel, who is clearly losing every competition they're in. (I don't know why Apple didn't go toward AMD, but I expect GPU hang-ups were part of it.)

[millzlane]

They finally made the device a little thicker. Apple could have put a better quality heat sync and fan in these models, they chose not too.

[znpy]

As GP pointed out, apple doesn't care, they already got paid.

I'll go further and I'll say I think it's actual dishonesty on their side: they're providing additional thermal headspace to their own cpus, when instead they have constrained Intel for years.

It's still pointless to point this out, apple users are going to buy apple stuff anyway...

[jgwil2]

*heat sink

Edit: why is this downvoted? This is a legitimately confusing mistake; people may think it has something to do with synchronization.

[goldenkey]

It's pedantic and the way you did it was rude.

You ought to have commented: "I believe you meant heat sink, not 'heat sync', am I correct?"

The average HNer is above average in intelligence and does not require a minor typo to be explicitly corrected.

[mleonhard]

If you're worried about thermal damage to your laptop, maybe you can prevent it? Some ideas:

- Leave the laptop screen open. You can turn off the screen by setting its brightness to the minimum setting.

- Power your USB devices from a powered USB hub.

- Point a small fan at the side of the computer.

- Clean the laptop's cooling system of dust and lint. Keep the laptop on a stack of books so the intake vent is raised above any surface that can collect dust.

[discardable_dan]

The laptop is practically new. I keep it standing vertically on its side, with the lid closed, plugged into an external monitor. It's still uncomfortably warm to the touch.

[bouke]

Power draw from the GPU is a lot lower on Monterey. Still not as good as driving only the internal display, but about ~40% lower compared to previous OSs. Lower power mode also helps another 15%.

[discardable_dan]

I don't care about power draw, I care about the fact that my laptop gets physically too hot to touch while running an external monitor.

[amarshall]

There hasn’t been a north bridge for nearly a decade, it’s all in the CPU. With no corresponding north bridge, Intel renamed the south bridge to platform controller hub (or just PCH).

[seanp2k2]

> literally burning out my work laptop

Is there any actual evidence for running a CPU near its thermal ceiling causing premature failure vs a cpu running at a 10-20c lower temp?

When I hear people saying things like “my PC is dying”, this is usually due to thermal throttling from dust buildup or malware running causing excessive CPU usage. It’s not like the CPU is getting crispy around the edges and parts of it stop working so only a smaller portion is still available to do work or something.

There seems to be a lot of conjecture out there about the longevity of a CPU vs heat, but I’m wondering if this has ever been actually studied in a scientific way. I understand that electromigration is real, and it could e.g. cause a trace to eventually blow out.

This is the closest thing to a real scientific explanation that I could find https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/5l3ufj/is_there_a... but it still doesn’t go into why / how / the physical mechanics of it.

https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/cpu-electromigration... Also attempts to explore this in a fairly scientific manner, but it’s focused on over-volting and overclocking vs normal (especially mobile, where CPU voltages tend to be less tweakable) operation.

TL;DR In my experience, CPU/GPU temps don’t matter as long as they are not causing throttling. Running within a few degrees of the thermal limit (Tjunction max ) 24x7 for years won’t affect the longevity of a CPU/GPU in any functional way, and won’t cause slowdowns, only failure, possibly of a subsystem like USB or other on-die subsystems. If anyone has anything showing otherwise, please share it!

[nikanj]

Yes. But the computer is very, very, very thin. Which sells more computers than actual performance under load.

Benchmarks show the MB having decent performance, as they start cold and don’t have external devices attached either. Thermal throttling only shows up once you’ve already bought

[bierjunge]

I have the 2019 MBP 16" with i9 inside and it's terrible for any task heavier than browsing the internet or watching cat videos.

Running CMake + gcc on a bigger project? The fans start running like crazy. The performance of the i9 is awesome, at least for the first 1-2 minutes, after that the CPU is throttling you back to the 90's and the fans are spinning even louder.

But this is not even the funniest issue with it. I have the biggest and most performant charger (96W, pretty much the maximum, because the USB-C standard states, you can only push up to 100W through it). You may think, if Apple put that charger in the box, it should be enough to achieve max performance with it AND still be able to charge it. Nope, but maybe it would be at least enough power, so the battery is not discharged. Lol, nope, higher load for a extended time WILL discharge your battery while being connected to the power supply.

I've tested it with two separate MBP with exactly the same spec (i9 + 32GB RAM + Radeon 5500M 8GB) with exactly the same behavior.

[toxik]

Pulling 100W on a laptop is pretty impressive though, that’s insane. Can you attach two chargers?

[officeplant]

Trying to keep that hardware to 100W is insane given similarly spec'd windows laptops will have up to 250w chargers and sometimes two of them if you have serious GPU power.

[sbr464]

You can, but it will only use one, switching to the highest wattage automatically.

[dahfizz]

> Yes. But the computer is very, very, very thin. Which sells more computers than actual performance under load.

No. Apple sells computers regardless, but now that "form over function" Johnny Ive has left Apple, Mac sales have actually shot up. People want their computer to look and feel good, but it still needs to function as a computer. Now that the actual functionality of the Mac is a priority again, they are selling better.

[hunter2_]

Reminiscent of the Volkswagen dieselgate situation where emissions are fine during the EPA test drive but horrible otherwise. This sort of thing will probably haunt us forever, in various forms.

[WA]

Attach an LG Ultrafine 5K and you can fry an egg on your €3,300 laptop and use the white noise from the fan to sleep well.

[danlugo92]

Attach the same monitor to both an M1 and an Intel Laptop, you can fry chicken on the latter.

[gambiting]

Can you? My i5-10300H equipped laptop drives two external monitors daily and the fans don't even start in normal use. Maybe specify which laptop?

The M1 can't even support two monitors plugged in directly, which is a joke for a machine this expensive.

[matthewmacleod]

The M1 can't even support two monitors plugged in directly, which is a joke for a machine this expensive.

That is the case for the M1, which is the lower-end of the new processors – a bit disappointing because I'd've otherwise bought one, but a relatively uncommon scenario overall for a lower-end Mac.

It's not the case for the recently-launched chips, which support up to 2x6k external displays (M1 Pro) or 3x6k + 1x4k (M1 Max).

[gambiting]

Yes, correct, sorry maybe I should have specified.

[imeron]

For the Macbook Pros definitely. Just try a non-4k (or FHD) display to trigger the external GPU to see the fans spinning up. Any ultra-wide screen will do.

[formerly_proven]

I've had dual-head on 12? 13? year old laptops - no problem (not HiDPI, which was not a thing then, obviously, but FHD or WQHD). Currently doing the same with an i5-8350U, runs passively most of the time.

[spectre3d]

My M1 Mac mini supports two monitors plugged in directly. I know you mentioned “laptop”.

OT: It’s nice that DisplayLink connections let an M1 machine have unlimited displays, and that the performance of their driver under Big Sur and above has been fantastic for me for the past half year for 2 extra displays. (Four total, 1 is vertical)

[easton]

The new MacBooks from a few weeks ago can due to Apple putting some effort into the GPU. I think they’re talking about the Intel MacBook Pro, which had meh cooling from what I hear. (Although if you want to see bad cooling, try out a Surface. Throttle city after anything strenuous.)

[alpaca128]

> if you want to see bad cooling, try out a Surface. Throttle city after anything strenuous

Implying Apple's cooling is any better? Both build difficult to repair devices tuned only for looks. Whether it's the Macbook that literally doubles its performance if you build a custom cooler that prevents throttling, or the Surface Book that you can't use at full performance for long because the charger cannot deliver enough power to sustain it.

Nobody can cheat thermodynamics, and attaching "Pro" to the name doesn't make it go faster either. I just hope I can keep buying "normal" laptops. They're ugly and noisy, but at least I know they can be fixed without melting off the keyboard or the repair guy telling me it's water damage when it isn't.

[ansible]

Do you have a discrete GPU on that laptop?

Intel integrated GPUs are often set up to use main memory instead of dedicated GPU memory (as for the Iris graphics). I wonder if that makes a difference, though it is on the same package.

[ahartmetz]

At least it's white noise. Tonal is far worse :D

[egypturnash]

Yes, my 13” 2016 Pro has this problem and only has two left side ports. It chews through batteries about once every 18 months. It’s been really annoying.

Maybe they fixed this issue in the time between 2016 and 2019.