The M3 MacBook Air is a fantastic laptop (we said so in our review) that’s easily worth picking up for the majority of Mac users who don’t need the power or significant heft of the MacBook Pro lineup.
And yet, as with prior models of Apple laptops that featured the M2 chip, the MacBook Air is getting pretty hot. How hot, you ask? Well, 114 degrees Celsius.
That comes via the team at Max Tech, testing whether the fanless design can keep up with the power of the M3. After all, no fan in the chassis means quieter running and one less thing to drain the battery.
On the other hand, we saw with the M2 how it would build up heat and then throttle performance since it wasn’t able to cool itself with an active cooling solution.
Max Tech’s 15-inch M3 MacBook Air’s core temperature reached that staggering figure of 114 degrees Celsius via a 3DMark benchmarking test, with 46 degrees Celsius on the chassis.
You can see the video below.
What are the risks of thermal throttling?
The good news is that the Mac will naturally bring its temperature down to avoid causing damage to itself (and others). It dropped to around 100 degrees Celsius, which is about what you’d expect from similar devices, but doing so can cause a performance drop in tougher workloads.
In our review, our reviewer said “[the fanless design] can lead to some thermal throttling under extreme load, but I never noticed anything to the detriment of my work. And that silence is golden.”
Should you be worried about the M3 MacBook Air being a danger to use, though? It’s unlikely, but the Pro is usually a better option for sustained performance across tasks like video editing and conversion.
We’ll keep an eye on further developments in any case, but it’s something to consider when you’re considering your next MacBook purchase.