One thing Apple put quite a lot of emphasis on in their keynote unveiling the Retina MacBook Pro was the asymmetric fan, which supposedly runs much more silently than the traditional fan and also moves more air. Japanese site IT Media decided to put this to the test with a thermal camera costing nearly $25,000, and got some pretty impressive results, MacGeneration reports.
The first test, simply how hot it ran in Sleep mode came out at 30.3 degrees (Celsius), which is the same as when it is shut down, with the fans inaudible at 30 decibels (unless you press your ear to the MacBook Pro). The second test (pictured above), ran a Quicktime movie for 15 minutes. The temperature only increased slightly, to 35.1, and the fan noise remained stable, showing that it can handle normal use without getting at all hot.
The third and fourth tests (pictured above) put it under as much strain as possible, with Cinebench and other CPU intensive applications being launched simultaneously. This did change things considerably, with the temperature rising to 48.2 and the fan noise reaching 46 decibels. At temperature, you’ll feel the heat just using the keyboard and it will be uncomfortable using it for long periods of time when it’s on your lap.
Nevertheless, using it for normal purposes, the Retina MacBook Pro is indeed very cool and silent, and it shows that the special fan has had a considerable impact. So unless you plan on using Final Cut Pro, AutoCad and Cinebench or any other heavy applications simultaneously, you should be able to use this any place for any amount of time.
