New Macbook Air 2012 Ivy Bridge

[DefenderX]

Quote:It was then discovered Ivy Bridge chips run hotter than Sandy Bridge–as much as 20 degrees Celsius higher when overclocked.

I can't imagine, that there are also problems if the CPU runs @ stock clock.

[Squall Leonhart]

the new conclusion is that initial reviewers were overclocking wrong.

[admin89]

To sum up :
If you want a super portable system that can play "light" PC game -> Get MBA
If you want a portable system that can play PC game well -> Get MBP Retina
If you want a desktop replacement that can handle heavy gaming (such as Dolphin) for a long period , easy to replace hardware or change thermal paste -> Get the gaming laptop on the first page (Edit : much cheaper price ofc)

[admin89]

I almost forgot this Ultraportable Gaming Notebook
@Op the choice is yours

[arashb]

(06-22-2012, 07:58 PM)admin89 Wrote: Doesn't matter . The Ivy Bridge chip run hotter than Sandy Bridge
http://www.geek.com/articles/chips/ivy-bridge-chips-run-hot-due-to-intels-thermal-paste-choice-20120514/
If you use Google , you will see many MBP Retina users have overheating issue

I googled it, and only found 1 thread about it overheating and another thread on these forums where you again told someone to google it. This time you said to google "Macbook Pro Retina 2012 overheating". So I did and again the same ONE thread came up.

OP, don't listen to someone like this. If you're leaning towards a MacBook for this type of stuff, don't get a MacBook Air. It's too thin to allow any type of cooling and at least get an independent GPU. For the best performance you'll need to bootcamp into windows, if you're sticking with a Mac. I'm using a MBP from two generations ago and I can run all games nearly maxed out except for SMG and SMG 2.

But MacBooks do run very warm, these aren't laptops. They are portables and definitely are not meant to be placed on your lap. But make sure you redo the thermal paste because they come with a crappy done job with that.

[Mahboishk]

It actually all depends on what you want from Dolphin. Do you just want the games to be playable? Even if they're not at full speed?

Twilight Princess (GC) works at around 75% and that's on an 11-inch Air. (Ivy bridge)

Base model ($999) is 1.7 GHz Core i5, 4 GB RAM, and Intel HD 4000 w/ 384MB shared. Any throttling is on the part of the processor, because Intel HD 4000 actually worked at around 100% on my 15" MacBook Pro (also Ivy Bridge).

The only problem is that the screen is really small, but I think that for really casual gaming it's fine.

[DefenderX]

Are u sure? 75% speed with a Intel ULV CPU in a Macbook Air? What are your temps?

[Shonumi]

Mahboishk Wrote:Any throttling is on the part of the processor

Yes and no. Assuming no AA is set, if your IR is set to 1x (some games might handle 2x too) your GPU will not be the bottleneck of the system. Raising the IR higher to 3x or 4x will cause the GPU to become the system bottleneck since it can't handle the graphical requirements at that point.