M1 can also be pretty hot

[Shirasaki]

Was using my M1 MacBook Pro today for other tasks while Mac App Store updating stuff. After a while, the Mac feels just as warm as some crappy Windows laptop, only worse cause metal chassis conducts heat extremely well.
Checked the activity monitor and installd uses up upwards of 200% of CPU. Turns out Xcode installing is halted or something.

What do you say, M1 can also get pretty warm if you let CPU/GPU at full load long enough. Thankfully the fan is spinning hard. Can't imagine what would happen for M1 MacBook Air, but running StarCraft II probably should be able to give me enough hint.

Nothing fancy, just a bit of surprising discovery.

 

[Marshall73]

M1 Air gets hot when playing Rosetta games like Diablo 3. Gets warm when playing native games like World of Warcraft. i have played Warcraft for extended periods on the Air with no issues, I wouldn’t want to do that with Rosetta games though, gets a bit too hot.

 

[lumpycustard]

I haven't seen any run to run variance as a result of throttling on my M1 Pro after over an hour of synthetic stress tests.

Under load it looks like the target temperature is 90-92c, with the fans spinning at 2500RPM (despite the fact that they can go much, much faster at 5000RPM+ -- at 2500RPM the fans are literally inaudible though)

I wouldn't say the laptop chassis was uncomfortably and unreasonably hot, but it certainly did get warm, since, as you said, the aluminium outer case is a good conductor of heat.

It seems that in Apple's pursuit of silence they've opted to keep the fan curve conservative, and the byproduct of this is a slightly hotter chassis. If you crank the fans to max speed they become audible, and the CPU temperature under load drops to less than 70C, which in turn reduces the temperature of the chassis.

Overall though, i wouldn't liken it to a "crappy windows laptop". I've seen older laptops from MSI warp and bend out of shape as a result of sustained load on older i7 CPU's.

 

[Kung gu]

Was using my M1 MacBook Pro today for other tasks while Mac App Store updating stuff. After a while, the Mac feels just as warm as some crappy Windows laptop, only worse cause metal chassis conducts heat extremely well.
Checked the activity monitor and installd uses up upwards of 200% of CPU. Turns out Xcode installing is halted or something.

What do you say, M1 can also get pretty warm if you let CPU/GPU at full load long enough. Thankfully the fan is spinning hard. Can't imagine what would happen for M1 MacBook Air, but running StarCraft II probably should be able to give me enough hint.

Nothing fancy, just a bit of surprising discovery.

The mwcbook air would throttle to keep cool

 

[senttoschool]

What do you say, M1 can also get pretty warm if you let CPU/GPU at full load long enough. Thankfully the fan is spinning hard. Can't imagine what would happen for M1 MacBook Air, but running StarCraft II probably should be able to give me enough hint.

Played Starcraft 2 using an M1 Air on my lap and on a desk for most of the year in a hot and humid country. I was never bothered by the heat.

It was bad with my 2015 Macbook Pro though.

Meanwhile, on my M1 Pro 16", playing Starcraft 2 doesn't even trigger the fans.

I couldn't have imagined playing Starcraft 2 on a laptop, unplugged, without hearing any fans, and having the battery life last 6 hours+ in the year 2020. But here we are.

 

[Gnattu]

Turns out Xcode installing is halted or something.

Install Xcode can be a CPU benchmark?, look at how much resources it is using during the installation process. Any computer will be less responsive if it is utilized like this.

 

[Shirasaki]

Played Starcraft 2 using an M1 Air on my lap and on a desk for most of the year in a hot and humid country. I was never bothered by the heat.

It was bad with my 2015 Macbook Pro though.

Meanwhile, on my M1 Pro 16", playing Starcraft 2 doesn't even trigger the fans.

I couldn't have imagined playing Starcraft 2 on a laptop, unplugged, without hearing any fans, and having the battery life last 6 hours+ in the year 2020. But here we are.

Interesting. I didn’t play StarCraft 2 very long on M1 MacBook Air and the whole chassis feels warm, some spots hot, and game keeps slowing down because of this. M1 MacBook pro fare better but some spots can still feel warm. I dont like playing using Touch Bar though so i end up not playing much.

 

[sionell]

Install Xcode can be a CPU benchmark?, look at how much resources it is using during the installation process. Any computer will be less responsive if it is utilized like this.

View attachment 1931135 View attachment 1931136

Ha! Installing XCode is always a multi hour process. It will eventually finish. Hours and hours later.

 

[senttoschool]

Interesting. I didn’t play StarCraft 2 very long on M1 MacBook Air and the whole chassis feels warm, some spots hot, and game keeps slowing down because of this. M1 MacBook pro fare better but some spots can still feel warm. I dont like playing using Touch Bar though so i end up not playing much.

Yea it was warm but nothing intolerable like Windows laptops. It was totally fine. I was even playing 4v4 late game with huge armies. Still fine.

 

[Shirasaki]

Yea it was warm but nothing intolerable like Windows laptops. It was totally fine. I was even playing 4v4 late game with huge armies. Still fine.

That’s interesting cause my cheap dell laptop can play StarCraft 2 for hours and it doesn’t feel very hot. Warm for sure but not hot.
Too bad that StarCraft 2 will never be compatible with Apple silicon, let alone optimised. I wonder which generation of apple silicon gonna be the latest gen that supports Rosetta.

 

[JMacHack]

That’s interesting cause my cheap dell laptop can play StarCraft 2 for hours and it doesn’t feel very hot. Warm for sure but not hot.
Too bad that StarCraft 2 will never be compatible with Apple silicon, let alone optimised. I wonder which generation of apple silicon gonna be the latest gen that supports Rosetta.

Probably 6-7 years from now MacOS will stop supporting Rosetta.

 

[darngooddesign]

Can't imagine what would happen for M1 MacBook Air...

The Air would hit its thermal limit of ~95C and then throttle performance to reduce its temps; which is what it is designed to do.

 

[bobcomer]

What do you say, M1 can also get pretty warm if you let CPU/GPU at full load long enough. Thankfully the fan is spinning hard. Can't imagine what would happen for M1 MacBook Air, but running StarCraft II probably should be able to give me enough hint.

I've been saying that all along, and I have an M1 MBA. It gets hot when doing some of the browser/office/VM work I've been known to do.

I never set a laptop on my lap, so that's not a problem, but the middle, just above the keyboard can get really hot. It also slows the machine down quite a bit when it gets in that state.

I wish I had those fans!

 

[bobcomer]

The Air would hit its thermal limit of ~95C and then throttle performance to reduce its temps; which is what it is designed to do.

I hit 118C on my MBA, so apparently it doesn't throttle enough if it started at 95C. Is there a way to set when it starts throttling? Maybe setting it lower would help...

 

[darngooddesign]

I hit 118C on my MBA, so apparently it doesn't throttle enough if it started at 95C. Is there a way to set when it starts throttling? Maybe setting it lower would help...

The M1 Air is supposed to throttle at 95C.

 

[OZ_]

Try TG Pro and set a rule to start fans after 70C - this way they’ll have a much smaller chance to reach 96C (by default fans only turns on after 95C, or if you are charging your battery and using a significant amount of power for workload).

 

[Lihp8270]

Try TG Pro and set a rule to start fans after 70C - this way they’ll have a much smaller chance to reach 96C (by default fans only turns on after 95C, or if you are charging your battery and using a significant amount of power for workload).

The air has no fans

 

[AppleShareholder]

Yep. The M1 is horrendously overrated. Don't fall for the hype.

 

[OZ_]

The air has no fans

That's a brilliant catch, but OP is talking about MBP.

 

[Lihp8270]

That's a brilliant catch, but OP is talking about MBP.

But were you replying to OP or the poster asking about getting temps down?

 

[OZ_]

But were you replying to OP or the poster asking about getting temps down?

You can guess, using the fact that MBA has no fans.

---

From my experience, it's more difficult to make MBA M1 warm (and I never had throttling in the whole time of using it). I don't play games on it

MBP 16’’ can start getting warm on the same load (compiling the same projects I was compiling on MBA). Using benchmark, I found that fans are turning on only when the CPU is really hot (>95C), or when the battery is hot and charging. So I’ve installed TG Pro to start fans at 15% of their potential when some sensor is higher than 65C - sound is barely noticeable (I can hear them on 15% only if I move my head close to the mbp). And usually, it's enough to stop the heating.