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New MBA heat/fan poll
- Thread starter ks-man
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From what I've gathered from responses so far both the 11.6" and 13.3" are very silent and cool, even with 1080p video. Fans only seem to become clearly audible when doing continues CPU intensive tasks like playing new(ish) games, but even then the heat is still much lower than with the previous generation.
After installing World of Warcraft trail account on my 13"/2gig/256ss the only time I can actually hear the fans is when in game, they are up to around 6400RPM. Compared to the Rev B 1.86/SSD is very quite. I can run any streaming video and nearly impossible to hear unless your trying to hear it and mute all other sounds. I've had a iTunes video running, loaded HD on Youtube, plus opened 7 or 8 tabs, iCal, iChat along with iMovie and iPhoto and still was tough to get the fans to pass 4000 rpm and have to really concentrate and put my ear back near the hinge to hear anything.
HUGE improvement in heat management and fan noise for daily use, gaming is still going to push the MBA, but I think that's a given considering it's spec's.
HUGE improvement in heat management and fan noise for daily use, gaming is still going to push the MBA, but I think that's a given considering it's spec's.
Oh how is the performance of WOW on the MBA, I heard at native resolution u get 10fps ~. If by any chance you have sc2, could you do some test, it would really be helpful
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Received the 13" MBA 2.13GHz this morning. Started running tests. When I ran the memory stress test, the fan kicked up. Not too surprised. It is a more powerful processor than the 11" 1.4GHz tested over the weekend -- whose fan I never heard at any point in testing.
Then ran Portal. Fan goes crazy on the 13" MBA. We have three MacBook Pros in the lab. None of them are this loud no matter what I run. Eeek. Again, there was not a peep from the 11" MBA.
Either something is wrong with this 13" unit or there is a design flaw.
Pssst: I'm getting 35 fps with Portal at 1280x800 High settings, 4X MSAA.
Haven't run in native 1440x900 yet. Stay tuned.
Then ran Portal. Fan goes crazy on the 13" MBA. We have three MacBook Pros in the lab. None of them are this loud no matter what I run. Eeek. Again, there was not a peep from the 11" MBA.
Either something is wrong with this 13" unit or there is a design flaw.
Pssst: I'm getting 35 fps with Portal at 1280x800 High settings, 4X MSAA.
Haven't run in native 1440x900 yet. Stay tuned.
1.86/2GB 13" (trading up to 2.13/4GB)
I am both impressed by the heat/fan *and* can feel/hear it at times. It all depends on what I'm doing.
Relative to other laptops I've owned, I'd say it's above average. The HP laptop that it is ultimately replacing has fan noise and TONS of heat all the time which is only worsened when executing CPU intensive tasks. So compared to that, the MBA wins by a longshot.
The CPU TDP for the 11" units is 10 watts. The TDP is 17 watts for the 13" units, so it isn't surprising that the fan goes crazy in the 13" and not the 11".
Cool, Cool, Cool
I have the 11.6" MBA, with 1.4 C2D, and I have yet to see iStat pro report a fan speed over 1999rpm.
I have the 11.6" MBA, with 1.4 C2D, and I have yet to see iStat pro report a fan speed over 1999rpm.
I went back to the 11" -- ran WoW for 3 minutes. It's fan ramped up, though not as high or as loud as the 13". The 11" measured 53 dB. The 13" measured 57 dB. Similar experience with Portal.
Makes sense, though, that the lower wattage 11" would produce less heat and, therefore, lower fan speeds.
I'll grab a copy of iStat and document the RPMs tomorrow.
Oh how is the performance of WOW on the MBA, I heard at native resolution u get 10fps ~. If by any chance you have sc2, could you do some test, it would really be helpful
I installed the trail account as I haven't played WoW in some months. I started off in Death Knell, or whatever the horde Undead area is, it auto configured the Video settings to medium/good which is basically half way. In the starting area it was running an easy 50fps, clearly not a very populated place, but never had a hiccup. I played for about 30mins, yes the fans do kick up to high but with the volume on about 60% I didn't hear the fan vs an older MBA I had, the fan easily drown out all sound from the machine.
Gaming on the 13" MBA (mine is the 2g/256) is going to run the fans pretty much full out, based on what I have experienced and read online. I don't however plan on using the MBA as a gaming machine anyhow, simply was more curious of how it performed against my older Rev B MBA that I had used some on the road to play WoW.