New Macbook Pro Retina 13 inch - High Temperatures?

Hi there, this is my first post to any forum relating to Macs and am in need of a little guidance as to if the temperatures that my Mac is running at are relatively standard.

I bought this brand new Mac 2 days ago for University work, and coming from an extremely Windows dominated background I have little to no experience with Macs. So far I've just been using it for basic web browsing, video watching and a bit of light gaming, stuff such as hearthstone, the binding of isaac etc and was noticing slowdown in this particular scenario after around an hour.

I decided to download iStats Menu as I like to keep tabs on how a system is running and was quite alarmed to see temperatures CPU wise sometimes rising to 90 degrees celsius, though this is only when light gaming, most of the time the temperature is around 70 degrees when the fans aren't on, and as of writing this the core temperatures are approximately 40 degrees celsius I assume because the fans have kicked in.

I'm just wondering if these temperatures are relatively normal, I'm also aware that the system will probably run slightly hotter as I always have it on my lap. I don't know if someone could tell me the average for temperatures for a system like mine too.

Thanks for any help in advance!

twofatslugs said:

I decided to download iStats Menu as I like to keep tabs on how a system is running and was quite alarmed to see temperatures CPU wise sometimes rising to 90 degrees celsius, though this is only when light gaming, most of the time the temperature is around 70 degrees when the fans aren't on, and as of writing this the core temperatures are approximately 40 degrees celsius I assume because the fans have kicked in.

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The 90°C temps I would say are not super common…but not unheard of. Maybe what you consider "light-gaming"…is actually fairly stressful on the hardware.

The 70°C and 40°C temps are normal. I usually expect somewhere around 50-55°C when doing general computing (casual internet surfing & email).

- Nick

pigoo3 said:

The 90°C temps I would say are not super common…but not unheard of. Maybe what you consider "light-gaming"…is actually fairly stressful on the hardware.

The 70°C and 40°C temps are normal. I usually expect somewhere around 50-55°C when doing general computing (casual internet surfing & email).

- Nick

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Yeah maybe the light gaming is a little bit taxing on the hardware considering this is only a notebook. I'm glad to hear the 70 degree temperatures are normal while the fans aren't spinning, was a tad worried. Glad to hear everything seems to be relatively normal at least.

Quick question regarding the fan, when exactly is it meant to turn on? Sometimes the computer is pushing 80 and the fans don't start spinning, sometimes I look at iStat Menus and the fans aren't kicking in at relatively high temps. Probably all normal, just used to a cooler Windows desktop gaming rig haha

twofatslugs said:

I'm glad to hear the 70 degree temperatures are normal while the fans aren't spinning…

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When the temps are 70°C "ish"…the fan probably is running. But at an rpm that it relatively silent/quiet (like maybe 600-800rpm).

twofatslugs said:

...when exactly is it meant to turn on? Sometimes the computer is pushing 80 and the fans don't start spinning...

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As I mentioned earlier in this post. The fan probably is running you just can't hear it.

From what I've heard from members (and folks on the internet)…it seems that newer Apple hardware is much better able to cool itself than previous models. Lower fan rpm's…and sometimes even 0 fan rpm's during low intensity stuff.

- Nick

pigoo3 said:

When the temps are 70°C "ish"…the fan probably is running. But at an rpm that it relatively silent/quiet (like maybe 600-800rpm).



As I mentioned earlier in this post. The fan probably is running you just can't hear it.

From what I've heard from members (and folks on the internet)…it seems that newer Apple hardware is much better able to cool itself than previous models. Lower fan rpm's…and sometimes even 0 fan rpm's during low intensity stuff.

- Nick

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Aah I see, I decided to do a quick non scientific stress test, had safari, steam, activity monitor, little inferno and spotify open, temperature was at 105 degrees on CPU 1 and the fan was spinning at 3500 RPM, could hear it spinning if I turned the music off, this seems too hot, though maybe that's pushing the system to its limit?

ferrarr said:

What is their model and specs of your mac pc? You should use your gaming rig for gaming.

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It's just the normal entry level MacBook Pro 13 inch Retina Display with the i5 and the integrated iris CPU. I'm probably expecting too much considering it is a notebook, but I just didn't expect such high temperatures with just safari, spotify and a very unintensive game. If it's normal, then no worries at all.