m1 max 64GB 2TB runs hotter than m1 max 32GB 1TB?!

[erkanasu]

Hey guys, has anyone else experienced something similar? My 'new' m1 max 2TB 64GB runs considerably warmer doing mundane tasks like having basic programs open and exploring YouTube vs my 2-year-old 1TB 32GB 1 max.

Does having more RAM increase m1 MAX temp? Or maybe the build quality is off on this one and it's missing thermal paste or something.

This is 1 week after the initial setup, so it's not spotlight indexing, etc

I already got the RMA from BH to send it back due to a key on the keyboard having an extra light bleed but was on the fence since that's not that big of a deal. but the heat thing is actually material to me.

 

[erkanasu]

Based on no responses, I’m guessing this is highly irregular and I should return it?

 

[iMacDragon]

I wouldn't be surprised, but not the amount of people that can directly compare will probably be limited, but more ram will certainly use a little bit more power, and thus heat. From what saying we have no idea what sort of scales talking about.

 

[bradman83]

Hey guys, has anyone else experienced something similar? My 'new' m1 max 2TB 64GB runs considerably warmer doing mundane tasks like having basic programs open and exploring YouTube vs my 2-year-old 1TB 32GB 1 max.

Does having more RAM increase m1 MAX temp? Or maybe the build quality is off on this one and it's missing thermal paste or something.

This is 1 week after the initial setup, so it's not spotlight indexing, etc

I already got the RMA from BH to send it back due to a key on the keyboard having an extra light bleed but was on the fence since that's not that big of a deal. but the heat thing is actually material to me.

Memory chips for RAM and SSD produce heat, albeit not to the level that a CPU does. This is why higher performance PCIe SSDs have their own heatsinks. Higher RAM and storage capacities mean either more chips producing heat, or higher capacity chips (which produce more heat). So yes, a laptop equipped with 64 GB RAM/2 TB SSD will run at least somewhat warmer than an identical laptop with 32 GB/1 TB.

Whether or not that's the cause of your specific heat issue is impossible to tell, but even if you do exchange it for the same model the replacement will run at least slightly warmer. You could always do a comparison in Activity Monitor between your two laptops to look at things like CPU load and usage history to see if there are in fact processes running in the background on the new machine that aren't on the old one.

 

[kevcube]

more memory = more chips = more voltage = more heat.

 

[erkanasu]

Thank you for the explanation on this, as a sanity check, and before I’m stuck with this machine, and due to the other issue of the key, I mailed it back to BNH today. They are going to exchange it I’ll report back to see if the same machine has cooler or the similar warm temperatures and we can confirm if I have a mental health condition or this was truly a problem lol

 

[erkanasu]

status update - the replacement 2TB 64GB runs cooler.... was a build quality issue. happy camper now (i.e. you were all wrong lol)

 

[iMacDragon]

To be fair you gave us no actual data or way to gauge how much warmer it was actually running to know if it was reasonable or not.