Are all M1 macs equally powerful?

[Krevnik]

Completely agree. I do feel that the issue of 'thermal throttling' has become something a trend in the community, which has was likely increased following Apple's previous generation of MacBook Pros (that were designed for Intel chips which weren't delivered).

Suffice to say, this might be the first Mac product line in many, many years that actually has sufficient thermal capacity.

It doesn’t help that Apple’s been trying to shrink device volume at the same time Intel has been ramping up power consumption (at same “rated TDP”) to try to keep AMD at bay while they’ve been stuck on 14nm. Not a good combo, and points towards a really good reason for Apple to go their own way.

But yeah, while these thermal solutions aren’t terrible, they aren’t designed for CPUs/SoCs that regularly try to spike upwards of 2x their TDP, and will consume every drop of thermal headroom the cooling solution provides to stay above TDP for long stretches. The fact that something like the 16” MBP can stay 40-50% above TDP for long stretches is itself impressive, if noisy.

I’m more surprised Apple never started setting explicit power limits on the Intel systems.

 

[Apple Knowledge Navigator]

I’m more surprised Apple never started setting explicit power limits on the Intel systems.

I would guess that had a lot to do with Intel's roadmap. The theory behind Apple's 'hotter' machines over the past 6-7 years is that they were designed for CPUs with a smaller manufacturing process, which Intel obviously failed to deliver on. This could be theorised further by Apple's decision not to change backtrack on their industrial design, since they almost certainly decided to switch to Apple Silicon shortly after Intel's shortcomings. They obviously didn't feel the need to increase the thickness/capacity of their devices again, only to shrink them once more when Apple Silicon was released.

 

[thenewperson]

I’m more surprised Apple never started setting explicit power limits on the Intel systems.

Same. We would have had the same controversies about 'thermal throttling' but at least the Macs would have been a lot more usable for people actually buying them (ignore keyboard issues pls).