MacBook Neo: Cheap cooling pad allows for more consistent performance
Apple's entry-level notebook works without a fan. Heat dissipation under high load is not ideal. A tinkerer wants to help.
Cooling pad installation on the MacBook Neo: It's not difficult.
(Image: Kirk Endsley / YouTube)
Among the positive aspects of the MacBook Neo are not only its surprisingly affordable price for Apple standards, but also its snappy A18 Pro chip, which actually comes from the iPhone. It achieves values that are significantly higher than similarly priced x86 PCs, even though there are no fans in the device. Internally, only thermal paste is used on the chip along with an apparently graphite-based heat spreader foil. As the first teardowns show, the latter is not directly connected to the Neo's casing. This leads to temperature-related throttling quite quickly in benchmarks, such as Cinebench. The system's power consumption then decreases. But would it help to ensure better heat dissipation at the casing? Initial investigations by a YouTuber show: Apparently so.
Cooling pad dissipates heat to the casing
As hardware tinkerer Kirk Endsley demonstrates (video below), it is sufficient to place an adhesive cooling pad in the area of the mainboard. This then establishes a direct connection between the SoC unit and Apple's aluminum casing. Installation is very simple: remove the screws on the underside, attach the cooling pad, done. If it is thin enough, the underside can be reattached without problems, even if it becomes tighter under the casing.
Videos by heise
The cooling pad, which cost less than 10 euros, then actually ensured that the benchmark results improved: The wattage practically never dropped below 10 watts, resulting in more consistent performance. The Cinebench score was 1705 points, without modification it was 1556 points, with the bottom cover removed it was 1482, and when using an external fan (with the bottom cover open) it was 1670. This means: The cooling pad worked better than an (albeit external) fan. According to Endsley, the Neo gets warmer on the underside, but supposedly not “uncomfortably” so.
Not relevant in normal computer operation
So, should one now get a cooling pad and attach it? In practice, probably not. Tests like this demand everything from the computer, but are hardly everyday use in practice. The MacBook Neo is absolutely fast enough for normal tasks; it can be used for rendering films and other demanding tasks, but will naturally be slower than a MacBook Pro given the overall system performance.
Empfohlener redaktioneller Inhalt
Mit Ihrer Zustimmung wird hier ein externes YouTube-Video (Google Ireland Limited) geladen.
Ich bin damit einverstanden, dass mir externe Inhalte angezeigt werden. Damit können personenbezogene Daten an Drittplattformen (Google Ireland Limited) übermittelt werden. Mehr dazu in unserer Datenschutzerklärung.
Applying the self-adhesive cooling pad also constitutes a hardware modification that would have to be reversed, for example, for a repair by Apple. Nevertheless, one wonders why Apple did not establish the direct connection between the SoC and the casing. The company might have feared the casing getting too warm – although this would only occur during high-performance tasks like Cinebench anyway.
The YouTuber Zip Tie Tech conducted a similar experiment. In his case, however, the cooling pad landed directly on the SSD and delivered benchmark improvements of up to 19 percent.
Empfohlener redaktioneller Inhalt
Mit Ihrer Zustimmung wird hier ein externer Preisvergleich (heise Preisvergleich) geladen.
Ich bin damit einverstanden, dass mir externe Inhalte angezeigt werden. Damit können personenbezogene Daten an Drittplattformen (heise Preisvergleich) übermittelt werden. Mehr dazu in unserer Datenschutzerklärung.
(bsc)
