I met with a coworker recently who has the intel macbook and I was shocked to hear the amount of noise coming out of the thing while just running the basic programs we need to run. It was even discharging while plugged in until they closed enough stuff and turned docker off. Meanwhile I haven't had any issues with the M1.
It's unfortunately not. The CPUs of the 2019 16" Intel MBPs are right at the thermal wall, and after removing so much mass, the Macs have no way to remove heat other than cycling fans extremely aggressively.
We hear almost nothing but complaints about them from long-time Mac users who are used to historically quieter devices. Under any load, like a few minutes of Zoom or Teams while connected to an external display, the fans are persistently and disconcertingly audible. It's become almost a meme in video conferences over the past two years when someone unmutes to speak and the fan noise overwhelms the noise suppression that you know they have a Mac.
Display artifacts and connection issues to USB-C displays aren't uncommon on the 2017-2019s either, but it still sounds like a torture test when running two 4k TB3 displays or a single 5k on one. The M1s are the first Macs I've recommend to friends and family in almost a decade.
Brand new Intel 16-inch MBP will blast fans doing even the simplest tasks. A single Twitch live stream open in the background. Running IntelliJ. Docked 4k monitor. Especially in clamshell mode, the fans will ramp up and stay ramped up, and the top row of the keyboard will get so hot that the machine is unusable without an external keyboard.
(I use one for work, it is terrible. And I used to have one for personal use, which I traded for a M1 Air)
I’m using TurboBoost Switcher Pro to battle this issue. It keeps the machine cool(er) and thus quiet(er). Combined with the VRM cooling mod, it is doable with heavy workloads. Battery life is still bad though and now the bottom gets very hot.
