Hi guys, might be a stupid question but when connecting a MBA M2 to a 4k monitor and use it for tasks like web broswing multiple tab, word, excel, pdf and maybe a little bit of AutoCAD would heat up the laptop? I am paticularlly interested in the thermal performance when it's connected to a high resolution monitor as it needs GPU to operate at a higher rate to support it (Please correct me if I am wrong)? Thanks
MacBook Air M2 - Does It Heat It When Connected to a 4k Screen?
cwtrick on 07/04/2023 - 01:41
Comments
I don't know but if it's an Apple monitor then it shouldn't for sure.
I doubt it. retina screens on 16 inch apple macbook pro laptops are at about 4k
I’ve used my M1 MacBook Air with a 4K Dell monitor since I bought it. It gets warm-ish after a couple of hours, but not uncomfortably so. If you’re that worried, get a MacBook Pro which has fans for better thermal performance.
Just calling out that M2 MacBook Airs only support 1 external monitor natively, extra monitors require a DisplayLink-compatible dock.
Quite an annoying limitation I found when I switched employers and they gave me an M2 Macbook Air
My M1 MacBook Air runs my 5K2K monitor at full resolution while running its own display and sidecar on my iPad Pro and it is still cool to the touch. My mind boggles at what it can do. It runs games silently better than my 2015 15 inch MacBook Pro did with its fans screaming at questionably unplayable frame rates…
I have the M1 Max MBP 16 and I can run its 4k 120Hz display + 3 external 4k 60Hz monitors and at idle I use about 20% GPU. When I am doing some photoshop / video editing it can get up to ~ 50%. During wake ~ 80%. But It NEVER gets noticeably warm. The only time I can get this thing to get warm is gaming or crypto mining, but neither of those are any good on a Mac anyway so I never do that :'). I think that AutoCAD might stress the MBA but I'm not sure.