[simoncion]

> ...I don't know that I've used a laptop before with the thermal management to withstand extended full load- either it throttles down or it damages itself.

Setting your "it damages itself" remark aside for the moment, every laptop I've ever personally owned runs flat-out indefinitely at its rated maximum speed. I make a point of choosing laptops that have properly-designed cooling systems.

Electromigration is real, but that's a process that happens over many, many years. It is (_strictly speaking_) damage... but the only real way to entirely prevent it is to never use the device in question.

> ...unless your rig is water cooled...

In my personal experience, for mainstream (and, yes, this includes "workstation" and "server") CPUs, water cooling isn't notably better than a big-ass Noctua heatsink with a couple of their 140mm fans strapped to it.

Phase change "heat pipes" are really fuckin good for rapidly transferring heat from the contact pad of these heat sinks out to their radiating fins, and the big fans that are usually paired with them are quite good at cycling enough air through the system to ensure that the heat is moved out of the radiator in a timely manner.

[wtallis]

> every laptop I've ever personally owned runs flat-out indefinitely at its rated maximum speed.

You must be using a very nuanced definition of "rated maximum speed", incorporating time-dependent effects like Intel Turbo Boost, and CPU power limits that vary depending on power source, OEM-specific software options, and possibly discrete GPU usage. Which makes your claim almost a tautology.