Will 2021 MBP have less fan noise than 2015 with CamLink, 4k display and Wacom?

[project_2501]

I am using a 2015 15" MacBook Pro with an external 4k display over display link (so only one display to drive).

I have a fan noise problem:

• When screen recording with Quicktime, and using an external Wacom graphics tablet, a Rode NT-USB microphone and maybe Affinity Photo ... the fan noise is so loud that it ruins screen recordings.

• Even when not doing all that and just screen recording with Affinity Photo fires up the fans to a very high level.

• Sometimes even watching YouTube at 1080p fires up the fans.

• Videoconferencing with google Meet, Zoom or Teams with a CamLink 4k (but at 1080p or 720p) also causes the fans to get very loud.

• Its 2021 and I reduce the external display screen resolution to "default" just to watch a movie ... in an attempt to reduce fan noise

So my question is - will I have such fan noise with a 2021 MBP 14" with M1 Pro?

I am actually disappointed in Apple. The 2017-nTB was particularly bad at heat and fan noise, and the heat started to damage the adhesive in the display...

My £250 Chromebook is silent and watched 1080p YouTube videos without any issues. In fact so did my palm-sized smartphone Pixel 4a - which has no fans. My Nintendo Switch can play fluid 1080p games and has a tiny almost silent fan. Why can't a MacBook Pro manage !?!

 

[Sanpete]

So my question is - will I have such fan noise with a 2021 MBP 14" with M1 Pro?

Probably not. That's a very particular use case, but I don't see it getting these new machines very warm. The 16" handles heat better than the 14", but even the 14" should be fine.

 

[project_2501]

Probably not. That's a very particular use case, but I don't see it getting these new machines very warm. The 16" handles heat better than the 14", but even the 14" should be fine.

Thanks Sanpete - is there any testing that you can point to which suggests this is true?

None of the many reviews and videos I've seen test in this, or a similar way.

 

[Sanpete]

I'm not aware of any testing that resembles the first part of what you describe. The M1 machines have hardware decoders for some of the video stuff that's given you trouble, so it's not a challenge at all. Watching a video, even a 4K HDR one, has been tested without significant heating. Videoconferencing has been done without any complaints that I've seen.

 

[project_2501]

I'm not aware of any testing that resembles the first part of what you describe. The M1 machines have hardware decoders for some of the video stuff that's given you trouble, so it's not a challenge at all. Watching a video, even a 4K HDR one, has been tested without significant heating. Videoconferencing has been done without any complaints that I've seen.

Thanks Sanpete - my concern is. that the 2015 MBP and the 2017 also had hardware encode/decode hardware support for h264 on the Intel CPUs. The 2015 didn't have h265 decode support but I wasn't using that ...