13.3 Ultimate vs Standard Heat Difference

[BrawndoQC]

Hi all! Long time lurker

I just upgraded from a Macbook Air 13.3 1.86 2GB 128SSD to a 13.3 2.13 4GB 256SSD, and well, I get between 10 to 15 degrees of difference in CPU Temp between the 2.

Test of the 2 computers side by side:

- Chrome
- Gmail tab + Youtube tab Running a 5 minutes video
- iTunes

Macbook Air 1.86 peaking at 58 Celsius
Macbook Air 2.13 peaking at 70 sometimes going to 71-72

Idle, about the same around 48. When I do some light tasks on the 1.86, will rarely reach 50, while the 2.13 will easily go near 60 degrees with iTunes playing, and browsing non-flash pages.

Right now, I've my 2.13 hooked to a 27 Cinema display, 57 degrees with fan at 3008 RPM, no flash windows, VLC player streaming shoutcast with less than 2% CPU Usage.

Big question is, normal behavior, should I return? Computer does heat more easily but doesn't overheat and didn't crash on me, but he definately is warmer to the touch, and it kinda bothers me after having experience a quite cold laptop that was my 1.86 2gb 128. Not sure if I'm being paranoid, it's the feel of the extra heat that led me to install stuff like istat pro and smcfancontrol.

 

[lshirase]

my 13 ultimate is 40C idle, 45~50C with youtube (sd) + itunes. when i watch youtube 720p / 1080p, temperature shoots up to 60-69C.

(i use coolbook)

 

[IngerMan]

Sounds like if you want the cool of the 1.86 you will need to run coolbook to dumb it down. You did get the 256 Gb SSD, and for $10 you can run it at the 1.86 speed. With the option to run it full board when needed.

I have the 1.86 4Gb ram and 128 GB SSD. I love it, but would like the Ultimate better for the bigger drive. If the heat bothered me for I do use it on my lap a bit, I would be running cool book. Plus I want to post and say I have the Ultimate. lol.... Maybe next time I will go Ultimate...

 

[DeusInvictus7]

I've been web browsing for a little while now, and my CPU temp is hovering around 35* Celsius; it's at 32* right now. If I have it under load (for me that's playing WoW), then it can go up to around 75*, but that's the highest I ever really seen it go.

It never feels hot, it always felt cool when carrying it (pun intended ), and even after heavy CPU using apps, it barely feels warm. Now my old i7 MBP on the other hand...that was quite the cooker. Felt warm at best, and then huge temp increases at or even above 100* C.

 

[halledise]

reset the SMC and see how you go …

 

[BrawndoQC]

reset the SMC and see how you go …

Resetting the SMC didn't help. Locking CPU to 1.86 Max didn't help.

It's still between 10-15 Celsius Higher, and the CPU heats up way too quick for nothing. Right now it's at 59 celsius, 3363 RPM, i started a video for about 30 seconds and closed it.

Watching flash video on NHL.COM brings it to 71-74 with full fan (6.5K) Will eventually come down to about 54 celsius doing light stuff.

Not sure what to do, if I return it for exchange I will be out of computer to work. I don't have a backup mac, I sold my other air a few days ago.

 

[lshirase]

Resetting the SMC didn't help. Locking CPU to 1.86 Max didn't help.

It's still between 10-15 Celsius Higher, and the CPU heats up way too quick for nothing. Right now it's at 59 celsius, 3363 RPM, i started a video for about 30 seconds and closed it.

Watching flash video on NHL.COM brings it to 71-74 with full fan (6.5K) Will eventually come down to about 54 celsius doing light stuff.

Not sure what to do, if I return it for exchange I will be out of computer to work. I don't have a backup mac, I sold my other air a few days ago.

71-74 is normal for flash videos on nhl.com....that being said, my fans are still at 2k rpm. 6.5k seems a bit excessive.

 

[scenemissing]

You may have gotten one of the ones where they put way too much thermal paste on the cpu...

 

[IngerMan]

I just tested my 1.86, watching about 5 minutes of video on NHL.com I would get up to 79 C pretty quick and my fan speed would run about 2,800-2,900 to keep it at 77-79 C. By the time I typed this 3rd line I am 50C and back to 2,000 RPM.

 

[zub3qin]

Hi all! Long time lurker

I just upgraded from a Macbook Air 13.3 1.86 2GB 128SSD to a 13.3 2.13 4GB 256SSD, and well, I get between 10 to 15 degrees of difference in CPU Temp between the 2.

Test of the 2 computers side by side:

- Chrome
- Gmail tab + Youtube tab Running a 5 minutes video
- iTunes

Macbook Air 1.86 peaking at 58 Celsius
Macbook Air 2.13 peaking at 70 sometimes going to 71-72

Idle, about the same around 48. When I do some light tasks on the 1.86, will rarely reach 50, while the 2.13 will easily go near 60 degrees with iTunes playing, and browsing non-flash pages.

Right now, I've my 2.13 hooked to a 27 Cinema display, 57 degrees with fan at 3008 RPM, no flash windows, VLC player streaming shoutcast with less than 2% CPU Usage.

Big question is, normal behavior, should I return? Computer does heat more easily but doesn't overheat and didn't crash on me, but he definately is warmer to the touch, and it kinda bothers me after having experience a quite cold laptop that was my 1.86 2gb 128. Not sure if I'm being paranoid, it's the feel of the extra heat that led me to install stuff like istat pro and smcfancontrol.

Forgetting heat difference, did you notice any real performance difference between the two processors?

 

[BrawndoQC]

I just tested my 1.86, watching about 5 minutes of video on NHL.com I would get up to 79 C pretty quick and my fan speed would run about 2,800-2,900 to keep it at 77-79 C. By the time I typed this 3rd line I am 50C and back to 2,000 RPM.

Thanks for takign the time to do this test.

Well, it's no deal breaker, my Mac air still works fine just seem to heat more than my previous one, but not enough to overheat.

I've to admit that it's also currently very hot when I'm currently located, around 38 celsius. If I'm in a room with A/C, it does help a lot with the heat. But still, I had the occasion to compare with my previous air, side by side running the same video, and I get 10-12 degrees difference, and that is somewhat annoying as I'm a perfectionist when it comes to computers.

Thanks for the help

 

[BrawndoQC]

Forgetting heat difference, did you notice any real performance difference between the two processors?

I'm not sure, I started using Photoshop and Illustrator only on my "ultimate" version. The ram did help at lot, especially for running Fusion when I've to test websites with IE9, but I guess an 277 mhz can't hurt. However, it's really the 4 GB ram and 256 Storage that was the motivating factor for me, but the CPU upgrade at that point made sense for the price.