• adb@lemmy.ml
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    3 days ago

    One of the nice things about a metal chassis is that it conducts heat very well. Now obviously, the screen isn’t metal so closing the lid probably does trap some heat but the metal chassis itself does not trap heat, it absorbs it and then radiates it to the outside world.

    This can indeed give the impression that heat generation is excessive in a metal chassis laptop, or that the thermals suck as you say, because the case can get warm or even hot very quickly. But that is actually because the chassis allows the heat to escape.

    On the other hand, a plastic chassis will stay much cooler on the outside because it is very effectively trapping the heat and only forcing airflow with a fan allows the computer to stay at an appropriate internal temperature.

    In other words; if all other parameters are the same, a laptop inside a metal chassis will have a lower internal temperature and a higher external temp, while one in a plastic case will have a higher internal temperature but the outside of the case will be cooler.

    • Zerush@lemmy.ml
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      3 days ago

      My ACER leaves the cooling crevices free with the lid closed, no heat accumulation.

    • a_non_monotonic_function@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      Thermals do suck on Apple laptops.

      Send my ASUS sends a lot of its own waste heat through the frame around the keyboard as well. I would not want to trap any of that s*** with GPU intensive activities.