Will the 14" MacBook Pro thermal throttle?

[Ma<intosh]

Hey,

We are all familiar with the fact that the 14" MacBook Pro with the 32-Core M1 Max would suffer from some thermal throttling but I've seen some concerning news that the M1 Pro chip on the 14" may also thermal throttle. In this video the CPU and GPU individually were maxed out, even with the fans kicking on it maintained temperatures of above 90 degrees Celsius, the more alerting part is that it was either just the CPU or GPU that was maxed out, what performance impacts would we see if both the CPU and GPU were running at full throttle simultaneously?

Cheers,
...

 

[5425642]

M1 Pro - No, M1 Max - Yes I have been seeing videos of the 14" throttling and getting to hot with the M1 Max max config.

 

[Itconnects]

What about the 16

 

[leman]

What about this is “concerning” and how do you define “thermal throttling”? From what I’ve seen so far the 14” is perfectly capable of sustaining max clock on all CPU and GPU clusters of M1 Pro pretty much indefinitely (but not on M1 Max).

At any rate, it’s kind of a moot point anyway since no real world workload will push both the CPU and the GPU this far. The limits only become apparent when running artificial stress tests.

 

[TSE]

Nope. 14" 32-core M1 Max user here - and I use a program all day that uses as much GPU and memory as it can get while multitasking with Edge, Safari, Slack all open and running on three monitors. No thermal throttling here.

 

[Apple Knowledge Navigator]

The 14" Max throttles, but if you watch videos of it happening then you'll see it's only by a very small margin. And even then, it took a considerable time to actually reach the point of needing to throttle, and you have to consider that the tests being used typically don't reflect real-world usage.

I don't see this being an issue for most people.

 

[Technerd108]

I highly doubt it. I got rid of my 14" for a 16" but while I had it there was nothing I could do that would even get the fans going let alone throttle and that was using a stress test multiple times.

Apple has done a pretty good job with the thermals. Dual fans and I believe dual heat pipe cooling system, more room and decent vents combined with M1 is a game changer. Most of us are used to Intel and it is hard to believe so much power can fit into a small device and not throttle. Just a processor that doesn't throttle without water coolers is so different. All Intel processors throttle and mobile processors are the worst. Rarely does the cpu sustain high frequencies stated by manufacturer but the M1 is very different in this regard.

I understand your concern. The 16" model does have better thermals but the 14" is no joke and can handle just as well as the 16" in most cases. If performance is really important to you then I would get the 16" but if the 14" size is perfect for you and you want the extra performance then you won't be disappointed. Basically you can't go wrong with any of these devices it really comes down to personal preference.

 

[MayaUser]

Hey,

We are all familiar with the fact that the 14" MacBook Pro with the 32-Core M1 Max would suffer from some thermal throttling but I've seen some concerning news that the M1 Pro chip on the 14" may also thermal throttle. In this video the CPU and GPU individually were maxed out, even with the fans kicking on it maintained temperatures of above 90 degrees Celsius, the more alerting part is that it was either just the CPU or GPU that was maxed out, what performance impacts would we see if both the CPU and GPU were running at full throttle simultaneously?

Cheers,
...

is not, no thermal throttling; Apple just limited the W on the m1 max for the 14" Mbp

 

[Erasmus]

I'm still waiting on my 16" Max, but based on logic, engineering and what I've seen here, I doubt any throttling is going to occur before the temperature hits 95˚C or even 100˚C. There is no need to aggressively ramp fans to keep CPU/GPU temperatures low, it just results in a waste of power through excessive fan use. Even if the temperature bobs up a little higher than 100˚C, there is no risk of bad things happening. If there were, Apple computers would throttle more aggressively, to avoid warranty claims.

Someone could probably test this using the power gadget, to check CPU/GPU frequencies as the platform heats up while running some burn tests.