MacBook Pro Core Duo Versus Core 2 Duo Temperature Comparison

Yesterday I bought a brand new MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo for a friend, and since I'm going to keep it for few more days before I have to reluctantly hand it over to him, I've decided to see how much of the buzz is true that the new MBPs are cooler than the previous Core Duo version.

I used Core Temp Duo to retrieve the temperature from CPU thermal sensor. It's a really cool small app btw.

These are the results of running

$ yes > /dev/null&
$ yes > /dev/null&

for about 30minutes on MBP Core 2 Duo (C2D) 2.33GHz:

11/13/2006 00:12 : 23:09 - 10.1% - 2.33GHz - 45C
11/13/2006 00:13 : 23:10 - 100% - 2.33GHz - 70C
11/13/2006 00:13 : 23:10 - 100% - 2.33GHz - 71C
11/13/2006 00:13 : 23:11 - 100% - 2.33GHz - 72C
11/13/2006 00:14 : 23:11 - 100% - 2.33GHz - 75C
11/13/2006 00:14 : 23:11 - 100% - 2.33GHz - 78C
11/13/2006 00:17 : 23:14 - 100% - 2.33GHz - 73C
11/13/2006 00:17 : 23:14 - 100% - 2.33GHz - 72C
11/13/2006 00:18 : 23:16 - 100% - 2.33GHz - 72C
11/13/2006 00:20 : 23:17 - 100% - 2.33GHz - 74C
11/13/2006 00:22 : 23:20 - 100% - 2.33GHz - 72C
11/13/2006 00:23 : 23:21 - 100% - 2.33GHz - 71C
11/13/2006 00:25 : 23:22 - 100% - 2.33GHz - 70C
11/13/2006 00:27 : 23:24 - 100% - 2.33GHz - 69C
11/13/2006 00:27 : 23:25 - 100% - 2.33GHz - 68C
11/13/2006 00:29 : 23:27 - 100% - 2.33GHz - 67C
11/13/2006 00:31 : 23:28 - 100% - 2.33GHz - 66C
11/13/2006 00:32 : 23:30 - 100% - 2.33GHz - 65C
11/13/2006 00:34 : 23:32 - 100% - 2.33GHz - 67C
11/13/2006 00:36 : 23:33 - 100% - 2.33GHz - 68C
11/13/2006 00:36 : 23:34 - 100% - 2.33GHz - 66C
11/13/2006 00:38 : 23:36 - 100% - 2.33GHz - 66C
11/13/2006 00:40 : 23:37 - 100% - 2.33GHz - 66C
11/13/2006 00:40 : 23:38 - 100% - 2.33GHz - 67C
11/13/2006 00:43 : 23:40 - 100% - 2.33GHz - 67C
11/13/2006 00:43 : 23:41 - 100% - 2.33GHz - 67C
11/13/2006 00:44 : 23:41 - 1% - 2.33GHz - 52C
11/13/2006 00:44 : 23:42 - 1% - 2.33GHz - 51C
11/13/2006 00:45 : 23:43 - 2% - 2.33GHz - 50C
11/13/2006 00:57 : 23:55 - 8.9% - 2.33GHz - 48C
11/13/2006 01:01 : 23:58 - 1.5% - 2.33GHz - 47C
11/13/2006 01:01 : 23:58 - 1.5% - 2.33GHz - 47C
11/13/2006 01:08 : 1 day 6 mins - 13% - 2.33GHz - 47C
11/13/2006 01:08 : 1 day 6 mins - 13% - 2.33GHz - 47C

And the results of the same test on MBP Core Duo (CD) 2.0Ghz:

11/02/2006 15:30 : 22:08 - 15.3% - 2.0GHz - 47C
11/12/2006 15:28 : 22:09 - 100% - 2.0GHz - 57C
11/12/2006 15:29 : 22:09 - 100% - 2.0GHz - 63C
11/12/2006 15:30 : 22:10 - 100% - 2.0GHz - 64C
11/12/2006 15:35 : 22:15 - 100% - 2.0GHz - 64C
11/12/2006 15:37 : 22:17 - 100% - 2.0GHz - 64C
11/12/2006 15:39 : 22:19 - 100% - 2.0GHz - 64C
11/12/2006 15:40 : 22:20 - 100% - 2.0GHz - 64C
11/12/2006 15:42 : 22:22 - 100% - 2.0GHz - 64C
11/12/2006 15:45 : 22:25 - 100% - 2.0GHz - 64C
11/12/2006 15:52 : 22:32 - 100% - 2.0GHz - 64C
11/12/2006 15:55 : 22:35 - 100% - 2.0GHz - 64C
11/12/2006 16:09 : 22:49 - 100% - 2.0GHz - 64C
11/12/2006 16:10 : 22:50 - 8.8% - 2.0GHz - 56C
11/12/2006 16:10 : 22:50 - 9.3% - 2.0GHz - 54C
11/12/2006 16:10 : 22:50 - 9.4% - 1.5GHz - 48C
11/12/2006 16:12 : 22:52 - 14.2% - 1.5GHz - 48C
11/12/2006 16:12 : 22:52 - 10.3% - 1.5GHz - 47C

Keep in mind that I was not aiming for scientific precision when executing these test. Both test were done while the notebooks where plugged to AC adapters and the power management was set to "Better Performance".

I have to say that I was surprised by the results of my "old" MBP. The average temperature of 64C is the best that I've seen for MBP CD. And I know what I'm talking about because this is my 3rd MBP CD.

When it comes to MBP C2D, the results were much better than my expected peak temperature of 84C. Considering that one of the MBP CD 2.0GHz that I returned to Apple (see my older post) was able to easily reach 91C, these results are really good.

The results coming from my "old" MBP could most likely be considered exceptional, so I think in general I can say that the new MBP C2D is cooler than the early revisions of MBP CD. Both the peak temperature and the temperature with the fans running at higher RPM are lower than what I was used to seeing at MBPs CD.

After running the test for 30minutes I could feel that the cases of both notebooks were getting warmer, but only the bottom side of notebooks could be considered more than warm. Based on my previous experience with first generation MBPs, this is far from what I was used to feeling.

After this test I ran a quick battery life test: I unplugged the MBP C2D from the AC adapter, set the power management to "Better Battery Life", set the LCD brightness to half and started listening to iTunes streaming radio (via WiFi). I left the bluetooth on as well. The resulting time was exactly 3 hours. Since this was the first discharge of the battery, I would not be surprised to see slightly better results after a few charge cycles. This result is also a slight improvement compared to MBP CD.