Apple’s all-new M2 MacBook Air has no internal fan – which can cause the notebook to throttle down it’s M2 processor due to heat when running processor-intensive applications. But there’s an inexpensive $15 modification – a simple thermal pad – that can increase the sustained M2 performance of the MacBook Air.
YouTuber Max Tech, who has already shared multiple videos of the 2022 MacBook Air’s internal components, decided to apply a cheap mod to his laptop to test whether it would result in more performance. Although Apple Silicon chips can run smoothly without an advanced cooling system, they still get quite hot depending on the tasks the user is working with.
As shown in one of his latest videos, Max has removed the bottom cover of the laptop to add a $15 thermal pad above the logic board, where the M2 chip is located. The thermal pad is able to quickly transfer the heat from the chip and logic board to the surface of the MacBook. As a result, the Mac is supposed to run even cooler, resulting in more sustained performance.
And it turns out, it really works. In one of his tests, the YouTuber exported 50 images of 42 megapixels each using Adobe Lightroom. The unmodified laptop took 2 minutes and 55 seconds to complete this task, while the MacBook with the thermal pad took only 1 minute and 56 seconds.
MacDailyNews Take: So, this is really only for those running processor-intensive applications over sustained periods of time, you know, things like rendering 4K videos all day long, so this is likely not an issue for MacBook Air users. Those users will already be on MacBook Pro units which contain active cooling fans.
The right tool for the job and all that.
However, if you’d like a simple, inexpensive way to increase the sustained M2 performance of your MacBook Air, you can get thermal pads starting under $6 via Amazon here.
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I’m skeptical his experiment was all that meaningful, and there could’ve been other factors impacting the time difference.
there could also be a drawback to the mod (Apple knows these things exist, there’s a reason they didn’t use one).
color me not convinced.
I wonder how much hotter the bottom of the MacBook Air gets with this vs without it. Could be why Apple does not include that as a design element.
MDN is again talking out of his ass. The laughably slathering sycophantic take by MDN would be utterly humiliating if MDN were capable of shame, which we learned many years ago is not possible.
The author of the linked article was not “rendering 4k videos all day long”. Not even close. We are talking about exporting all of 50 photos out of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, all of 3 minutes worth of work. Something anyone and *everyone will do a LOT. I am not a professional photographer by any stretch of the imagination and have 40,000 photos in my Lighroom library. Exporting 50 or 300 photos is something I do all the time. My old Intel MacBook Air will NEVER throttle down when I perform such actions. I’ll hear the fan as that ramps up to account for the heat generated by the processor.
Exporting photos is an absolutely trivial operation. Yes it is processor heavy but it is not an esoteric action like rendering video. Therefore, many users, if not most, can clearly see that they will see their CPU throttled down after a minimal amount of time of high, standard usage.
MDN’s idiotic take will not hide this fact.
Unhinged Dude,
Don’t blame MDN that you’re too stupid, cheap, and/or poor to have a MacBook Pro.
You’re using a sophomore college girl’s Mac.
Not MDN’s fault.
Sincerely,
Educated Mac Users Everywhere
The “original Mac user” clearly only has 128k of ram In his brain and never updated it. Sad.
MDN, call off your attack dogs. You should be ashamed.
sickem
the MDN pack
MDN doesn’t control me, Sarah, you bully! You don’t control me either Sarah, you attack dog!
You give aholes a bad name. Pretentious aholes are the worst.
Education doesn’t mean much if you don’t use it, asshole.
AppleCynic: the original pretentious a-hole.
Rumor has it…Germans will soon be buying a lot of MBAs for winter heating. Russian oil supply is crimped and they’ve discovered wind and solar isn’t cutting it.
Rumor has it… MDN won’t last that long.
Rumor has it you’re a moron
or move to northern Alaska where a warm laptop is a good thing 🙂
Even with it throttled back do to heat. I’m sure it’s still way way more faster than my old MacBook Pro.