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ArkSingularity

macrumors 6502a
Mar 5, 2022
928
1,130
In general, Apple designs their hardware so that it hits close to maximal safe operating temperature while running at sustained design TDP. This is certainly the case for mobile. I never tested a Mini and dint know how it works, but I’d assume it will be something similar.

Apple definitely has a habit of this. Every Apple device I've ever owned did this as well and wouldn't really ramp up the fans in full-force until they neared 100C.

I've always been deathly afraid it would fry itself, but even my old 2012 is still running after years of running at those kinds of temps. Apparently the GPUs from that era weren't as lucky (from what I hear), but the CPUs seem to have stood the test of time even in those kinds of conditions.

It's honestly almost impressive (and slightly horrifying at the same time) how close they manage to get those chips to thermal junction without frying the computer.
 

leman

macrumors Core
Original poster
Oct 14, 2008
19,521
19,678
Apple definitely has a habit of this. Every Apple device I've ever owned did this as well and wouldn't really ramp up the fans in full-force until they neared 100C.

I've always been deathly afraid it would fry itself, but even my old 2012 is still running after years of running at those kinds of temps. Apparently the GPUs from that era weren't as lucky (from what I hear), but the CPUs seem to have stood the test of time even in those kinds of conditions.

It's honestly almost impressive (and slightly horrifying at the same time) how close they manage to get those chips to thermal junction without frying the computer.

It’s truly precision engineering. AFAIK, Apple is the only one to pull this off, nobody else wants to invest resources into five-tuning this stuff. As o why they do it: it allows them to maximize performance while minimizing the chassis size and fan noise. Also, efficiency of the cooling system - no need to have those fans spin if they don’t do anything useful. Keeping the chips below t-junction is a waste of energy if you don’t have performance problems.
 
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leman

macrumors Core
Original poster
Oct 14, 2008
19,521
19,678
@leman are you interested with the upcoming new Display With A-Series Chip ?

Definitely interested in a good, affordable external display. Don’t really care for any A-chips in it :) not sure how that would work anyway
 

Pressure

macrumors 603
May 30, 2006
5,182
1,544
Denmark
I am talking about sustained operation. The mini cannot sustain the 8700B at full turbo.
Of course not. The PCB and PSU is simply too large to accommodate a better cooling solution.

The M1 Mac mini is mostly empty, so you could argue there would be room for a larger heatsink and fan, no? Make a GaN PSU and it could be tiny and cool.

Look at all the **** that goes inside the Intel Mac mini. It's crammed full from the moment you pop off the bottom lid.

ZLFbiRsOdiemeWLA.full


Nice x-ray of the M1 Mac mini for comparison.

m1_mac_mini_xray.jpg
 
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MayaUser

macrumors 68040
Nov 22, 2021
3,178
7,200
Definitely interested in a good, affordable external display. Don’t really care for any A-chips in it :) not sure how that would work anyway
to keep the laptop not heating anymore? especially the intel ones
but we will see what that SoC means into the display :)
 

MayaUser

macrumors 68040
Nov 22, 2021
3,178
7,200
Of course not. The PCB and PSU is simply too large to accommodate a better cooling solution.

The M1 Mac mini is mostly empty, so you could argue there would be room for a larger heatsink and fan, no? Make a GaN PSU and it could be tiny and cool.

Look at all the **** that goes inside the Intel Mac mini. It's crammed full from the moment you pop off the bottom lid.

ZLFbiRsOdiemeWLA.full


Nice x-ray of the M1 Mac mini for comparison.

m1_mac_mini_xray.jpg
agree, if Apple wants to remove the power supply also...there can be enough room for dual M1 max...but for the rack mount-in an outside power supply like the imacs...will be a step back
 

crazy dave

macrumors 65816
Sep 9, 2010
1,453
1,229
Definitely interested in a good, affordable external display. Don’t really care for any A-chips in it :) not sure how that would work anyway
Yeah I’m curious to see the use case for the A-series chip is. I can imagine several, but I wonder angle Apple is going for here - like what “killer feature” Apple is going to emphasize.
 

leman

macrumors Core
Original poster
Oct 14, 2008
19,521
19,678
Yeah I’m curious to see the use case for the A-series chip is. I can imagine several, but I wonder angle Apple is going for here - like what “killer feature” Apple is going to emphasize.

Probably a built-in Apple TV or something…
 

mr_roboto

macrumors 6502a
Sep 30, 2020
856
1,866
Yeah I’m curious to see the use case for the A-series chip is. I can imagine several, but I wonder angle Apple is going for here - like what “killer feature” Apple is going to emphasize.
So one thing about Apple's XDR display tech is that it should require, somewhere in the system, quite a bit of processing power dedicated just to taking the original image and converting it to a low res backlight LED image plus a high res LCD image. The two influence each other - if a given LCD pixel has RGB values set to full brightness (ie white), but the backlight zone behind it is set to 50% of the panel's current brightness setting, the pixel is actually displaying 50% gray. So you have to do a lot of math to compute what you'd like the backlight intensity image to be, then modify RGB values to correct them for the backlight zones.

I suspect that in the 14"/16" MBP and the iPad Pros with XDR, they haven't pushed that function out to the silicon which is part of the display. Among other things, it likely requires one or more buffers the size of the frame buffer. If you can avoid it, it's nice not to require your display to have that much high performance RAM - saves money, probably reduces system power, etc.

But in a standalone desktop display that's not paired to a specific Mac, they probably do want that functionality to live out in the display. No power constraints, and they probably want to sell these displays to people with Intel Macs, and possibly even let them work on Windows machines. In light of that, why not just throw a harvested A-series chip in there to do that job? It's an excellent way to use chips which have too many failures to use as a phone, tablet, or Mac.

That's my guess / prediction! We'll see what's actually real soon enough.
 
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bobcomer

macrumors 601
May 18, 2015
4,949
3,699
It’s truly precision engineering. AFAIK, Apple is the only one to pull this off, nobody else wants to invest resources into five-tuning this stuff. As o why they do it: it allows them to maximize performance while minimizing the chassis size and fan noise. Also, efficiency of the cooling system - no need to have those fans spin if they don’t do anything useful. Keeping the chips below t-junction is a waste of energy if you don’t have performance problems.
Some of the higher end lenovo's thinkpads are just as good at that as Apple...
 

Krevnik

macrumors 601
Sep 8, 2003
4,101
1,312
Of course not. The PCB and PSU is simply too large to accommodate a better cooling solution.

The M1 Mac mini is mostly empty, so you could argue there would be room for a larger heatsink and fan, no? Make a GaN PSU and it could be tiny and cool.

Look at all the **** that goes inside the Intel Mac mini. It's crammed full from the moment you pop off the bottom lid.

it’s not going to be as empty with an M1 Max or dual M1 Max SoCs in there. But you’d have to double the capacity of the cooling system for dual M1 Max, which likely means larger vents as well to move the air at the noise level Apple likes.
 

Pressure

macrumors 603
May 30, 2006
5,182
1,544
Denmark
it’s not going to be as empty with an M1 Max or dual M1 Max SoCs in there. But you’d have to double the capacity of the cooling system for dual M1 Max, which likely means larger vents as well to move the air at the noise level Apple likes.
A single M1 Max would be fine. I'm not sure why this is suddenly about how squeezing two SoCs in the old Mac mini design.
 

Krevnik

macrumors 601
Sep 8, 2003
4,101
1,312
A single M1 Max would be fine. I'm not sure why this is suddenly about how squeezing two SoCs in the old Mac mini design.

That was the context in which Leman was talking originally that you replied to:

M1 Max is 70-80 watts on full load, closer to 50-60 watts in typical GPU loads. A dual system would need up to 150-170W of power. The “hottest” CPU ever used in a Mini was 65W. No way in hell.

Note that Leman also mentioned they believed a single M1 Max would be doable. I agree with the assessment.
 

leman

macrumors Core
Original poster
Oct 14, 2008
19,521
19,678
Note that Leman also mentioned they believed a single M1 Max would be doable. I agree with the assessment.

I think it will be doable but there might be more btw dive use instances when it won’t be able to reach optimal performance
 

clangers23

macrumors 6502
Oct 27, 2016
325
447
I've just received a new desktop replacement Lenovo Legion 5i Pro with an i7-12700 mobile CPU & RTX 3070Ti. I've just completed some basic benchmarks without ramping anything up. It appears to be consuming around 185w+, not very scientific but yikes. More than 2x times the power consumption of my MacBook Pro for similar performance. Lovely device all the same.
 

dgdosen

macrumors 68030
Dec 13, 2003
2,817
1,463
Seattle
M1 Ultra - looks pretty exciting - but I can't help but be even more wowed at the aspect of these improving on a regular basis.
Can you imagine an M3 Ultra at 3nm in a couple of years? That's nuts...
 
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pshufd

macrumors G4
Oct 24, 2013
10,149
14,574
New Hampshire
I wonder what the Mac Pro replacement is going to look like.

Is anyone here going to get an M1 Ultra system? I have nothing that I run that would remotely come close to needing one of these. I do love how clean it is but would still prefer an iMac.
 

Malus120

macrumors 6502a
Jun 28, 2002
696
1,456
So much for Alder Lake's "performance crown" (you'll need to step up to AMD ThreadRipper to beat this) AND it's faster than a 6900XT... in a tiny little form factor... Sick... This thing is a PC SFF enthusiasts wet dream :D
 
Last edited:
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diamond.g

macrumors G4
Mar 20, 2007
11,438
2,665
OBX
I wonder what the Mac Pro replacement is going to look like.

Is anyone here going to get an M1 Ultra system? I have nothing that I run that would remotely come close to needing one of these. I do love how clean it is but would still prefer an iMac.
Based on how they kept talking about the unified nature of the architecture, I feel like the Mac Pro as we know it will go away and they will either make the Mini even bigger than the Studio or bring back the "trashcan" Mac design.
 

pshufd

macrumors G4
Oct 24, 2013
10,149
14,574
New Hampshire
Based on how they kept talking about the unified nature of the architecture, I feel like the Mac Pro as we know it will go away and they will either make the Mini even bigger than the Studio or bring back the "trashcan" Mac design.

The rumors have the iMac Pro and Mac Pro in 2023 so I'm expecting them.

The winner is ... Luke Miani who called this perfectly yesterday.
 

diamond.g

macrumors G4
Mar 20, 2007
11,438
2,665
OBX
The rumors have the iMac Pro and Mac Pro in 2023 so I'm expecting them.

The winner is ... Luke Miani who called this perfectly yesterday.
I am not saying they wont come out, but if the only thing they are offering is PCIe slots that won't work with video cards, and the memory is not expandable nor is the CPU replaceable, what is the point of the mac pro in it's current form factor.
 

pshufd

macrumors G4
Oct 24, 2013
10,149
14,574
New Hampshire
I am not saying they wont come out, but if the only thing they are offering is PCIe slots that won't work with video cards, and the memory is not expandable nor is the CPU replaceable, what is the point of the mac pro in it's current form factor.

I'm expecting some kind of solution on RAM. I also expect a quad M1 Max chip. No idea what it would be used for but hey, it's Apple.
 

diamond.g

macrumors G4
Mar 20, 2007
11,438
2,665
OBX
I'm expecting some kind of solution on RAM. I also expect a quad M1 Max chip. No idea what it would be used for but hey, it's Apple.
I am curious on the RAM solution, because that is going to be a major performance/bandwidth hit to go outside if what is on package.
 
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