Macbook Pro - 15" with i7 processor - Any problems with heat?
You may have already heard about the review done by the folks at PC Authority in Australia, where they had an i7 MacBook Pro that got up to 100 degrees Celsius during benchmarking. Here is the URL in case you have not read it.
In any case, I was considering purchasing a 15" Macbook Pro with the i7 processor and the NVIDIA GeForce GT330M with 512 video memory. Having read how hot the computer got I started to become hesitant about purchasing. My main concern is long term damage to the computer due to excessive heat.
I plan to use the MacBook Pro as a development machine where I will be running Windows 7 within VMWare Fusion or Virtual Box. Within the VM I will be running IIS, SQL Server, Visual Studio and SharePoint Server. Hence why I would like to have the power of the i7 processor.
That is why I wanted to check with actually owners of the MacBooks with the i7 processor and see what their experiences have been. Have you noticed excessive heat? How does your Macbook handle process intensive apps over long periods of time? Thank you!
Solution 1:
I don't have 1 of the new i7 MBPs but have the 13" 2.53Ghz model from before, and even on this the temperature gets very hot, but it's only when doing video editing. I easily run VMware and parallels running XP, Windows 7, ubuntu and a SQL server all at the same time (as well as other programs like iTunes, Mail etc) without it getting as hot as when trying to convert a video file on its own. Oh and if you want to use it, Parallels is very good, the VMs run much faster than VirtualBox and a fair bit faster than VMware Fusion
Solution 2:
Remember that benchmarking deliberately stresses the system to see in essence how fast it can perform a variety of calculations.
In normal use I would not expect that amount of heat no matter what you throw at it. The i7 is a beast and can handle just about anything you throw at it with enough RAM.
There is a reason failure rates for laptops are higher then desktops or servers. Lots of heat, little space.
From the article you referenced:
Cinebench is of course one of the most CPU-heavy tasks we can throw at a system. CPU temperatures of 100 degrees aren't something to expect at every turn, however even our real world benchmarks were pushing CPU temps over 90 degrees.
A spokesperson from Apple said that the Macbook is "well within the safety requirements set by the US Safety Authority" and that the CPU temperature was "within the settings from Intel" (Specifications for the Core i7-620M provide operating temperatures of 0-105C(min-max)).
If the chip manufactor (Intel) states it can run up to 105C then it is fine to run it to 105C. I understand that that's the boiling point of water, but the chips a beast and the heat output (as demonstrated) is large.