Question: Hard Cases & Heat Dissipation Under Heavy Loads

[Drifter759]

I’ll be getting a 16” M2 Max MBP whenever they come out to (among other things) do 3D work - modeling, texturing, rendering, that sort of thing. I’ll be traveling a lot and the laptop is likely to see light abuse, so I was thinking of getting a hard case like the UAG Plyo.

My question is: will the case seriously degrade the laptop’s ability to dissipate heat, thus lowering its performance? Does anyone who does CPU/GPU intensive work on Apple Silicon MBPs use a hard case? If so, what are your experiences?

I had a bumper case (Thule Vectros) on a MBP I used to own, and it didn’t seem to affect heat dissipation much, since it left most of the metal exposed. But these newer cases completely cover the laptop (except for some holes on the bottom) and that has me concerned.

 

[Sheepish-Lord]

If you look at websites/videos that document heat signatures the main source is obviously the chip in the bottom of the chassis and while heat dissipates via fans through the area by the bottom of the screen the chassis in general acts similarly to a heatsink. If you want to cover the laptop then I'm sure it's fine but I would argue that for your use case I would just get a slim sleeve for transporting that way nothing is covered when it's actually in use.

 

[spiderman0616]

I'm using the Incase Dot hard shells on both my MBPs. They do cover a majority of the MacBook, but leave all the ports and vents fully exposed. The heat that the laptop gives off under load seems mostly to come out of those vents or I've also noticed the frame up by the top of the keyboard can get somewhat warm too. I think with any model with a fan that's being depended on for anything beyond passive cooling will do just fine with a hard shell on it.

 

[sam_dean]

Odds are Apple never designed their Macs with hard cases in mind.

 

[spiderman0616]

Odds are Apple never designed their Macs with hard cases in mind.

Apple sells several models of them directly from their stores and website, which is where I get mine. Apple only sells 3rd party accessories that they're ok with you using with your Apple products. If you want to get a hard case that you're sure has been vetted by Apple, they have that option. They've also sold their own branded sleeves over the last few years for MacBooks.