The Importance of Thermal Paste Replacement in MacBooks

When it comes to upgrading or repairing your MacBook, one of the most crucial components to consider is the thermal paste that sits between the CPU and heat sink. In this article, we'll explore the importance of replacing this thermal paste, specifically in relation to the Retina MacBook Pro.

I've been testing various thermal pastes on my Retina MacBook Pro, including Reap Ace, a popular choice among Mac enthusiasts. The goal was to see if this thermal paste replacement would make a significant difference in terms of temperature management and overall performance. To conduct this experiment, I started by running benchmarks, such as Cinebench, before and after applying the Reap Ace thermal paste.

Before we dive into the results, it's essential to understand that thermal paste plays a critical role in heat dissipation. Essentially, what you're trying to do is improve the thermal conductivity between the CPU and heat sink, allowing for more efficient cooling. Apple's design for the Retina MacBook Pro takes this approach to a whole new level.

However, I noticed that temperatures didn't change significantly when I was running benchmarks. Before the Reap Ace thermal paste, we were looking at average temperatures of 96.5°C, 96.8°C, and 98.1°C in Cinebench before the thermal paste. After applying the Reap Ace, these numbers decreased to 95.2°C, 94.8%, and 92.7%. While this might seem like a minor decrease, it's still noteworthy.

So, what's going on here? I believe Apple has optimized their cooling system to prioritize quiet fans over cool running CPUs. Essentially, they let the CPU run as hot as possible before kicking in the fans. This approach is evident when looking at fan speeds and temperatures during startup.

Before the Reap Ace thermal paste, it took 4.1 seconds for the CPU to reach 90°C. After applying the thermal paste, this time decreased to 4.2 seconds. While both values are still relatively high, this suggests that Apple's design is geared towards maintaining quiet operation over efficient cooling.

However, there is some good news when looking at Cinebench scores. In Cinebench R20, before the Reap Ace thermal paste, we were seeing average scores of 13,433. After applying the thermal paste, these numbers decreased to 13,393. While this might seem like a minor improvement, it's still worth noting.

One aspect that I found particularly interesting was the impact on idle temperatures. Before the Reap Ace thermal paste, my MacBook would idle at around 53°C. After applying the thermal paste, this value decreased to 43.2°C. This represents a significant reduction in temperature, even when the fans are running at their minimum RPM.

Furthermore, I noticed that turbo speeds improved after applying the Reap Ace thermal paste. Initially, my CPU was running at 2.91 GHz, which is slightly higher than its base clock speed of 2.6 GHz. After applying the thermal paste, this value decreased to 2.98 GHz on average. This marginal improvement in turbo speeds suggests that the Reap Ace thermal paste is indeed effective.

In conclusion, replacing the thermal paste in your Retina MacBook Pro with a high-quality option like Reap Ace can make a significant difference in terms of temperature management and overall performance. While some aspects may not show drastic changes, the improvements are still noteworthy, particularly when it comes to idle temperatures and turbo speeds.

Ultimately, this experiment highlights the importance of considering thermal paste replacement when upgrading or repairing your MacBook. Even with minimal intervention, such as swapping out thermal paste, you can experience noticeable improvements in performance and temperature management. If you're thinking about replacing your thermal paste, I would definitely recommend doing so – it took me only 10 minutes to change the paste, and the results were well worth the effort.

Let us know in the comments below: do you think this thermal paste replacement was worth it? Make sure to LIKE comment and subscribe for more content. Don't forget to follow me on Twitter at @LukeMephisto, and please consider joining my subreddit if you have any questions or concerns about upgrading or repairing your MacBook.

In the next video, I'll be discussing other topics related to Mac upgrades and repairs – stay tuned!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enso in this video I want to find out just how much of a difference does it make to change the thermal paste on a macbook so I've talked about this before I even have a tutorial from quite a while ago on how to replace the thermal paste on a retina macbook pro such as this and I've talked about some of the benefits of it but the real question that I want to talk about today is just how much are you going to notice it and doesn't really matter now of course your mileage may vary depending on the thermal paste that you use and which model you're doing this on I know for example Quinn from snazzy labs had a lot of success upgrading the thermal paste on a 20-18 macbook pro because just by default the factory thermal paste that Apple and really most laptops use its kind of crap so what we're gonna do today is take my late 2013 MacBook Pro it's a Retina it's got a Haswell CPU this thing is actually pretty powerful for its age it actually outperforms like 2017 MacBook Pros which is kind of embarrassing for them and we're just gonna replace it with some cheap like five dollar thermal paste that I got at Micro Center really nothing fancy not doing liquid metal this is just your standard you know thermal paste so what I want to know is is this going to be a substantial difference am I gonna be like wow or will I even notice at all so before I started filming I gathered some data some Cinebench runs some Geekbench runs temperatures as well as the time taken to reach 100 degrees Celsius which is the t-junction time to reach 90 degrees Celsius and also what the fan and temperature curves look like once the machine is under load so with all that in mind I'm gonna change the thermal paste and we're gonna see what changes alright so with the heatsink off oh this is not is that good hello alright so here's what it looks like without the heatsink on and do you see how much of the CPU and GPU die are reflecting there's like barely any thermal paste on here look at how spotty that is it looks awful it's all sort of clumped up around where the CPU and GPU are on the heatsink which is just not good so definitely definitely going to replace that definitely a need of replacement one of the things I'm also gonna do is clean out these heat sinks because not too bad but they could use a little dusting and that should help with the airflow nuts camera wasn't recording when I was putting it back together but oh well heat sink is back on this is a super simple process all you need is one of these what's this a p5 screwdriver pop the back off and then all you need is I think it's a t5 yeah a t5 to take off the heatsink screws that's literally it like I would make a tutorial but I'm kind of lazy and also it's really it's just a couple of screws with two different screw bits and you can kind of just figure it out so it's really not that complicated let's turn this thing back on okie dokie ladies and gentlemen the results are in and they're weird alright so I've written down all of the things that I took note of so first let's talk about the temperatures and really this was more insightful in terms of what it told me about the way Apple cools their machines from a software side then how this thermal paste makes a difference because essentially what I noticed was the temperatures didn't change when I was running benchmarks so in Cinebench before the thermal paste we were looking at 96 and a half 96 point eight and ninety eight point one average temperatures then after the Reap aced ninety five point two ninety four point eight ninety two point seven so mild mild - decreases it really wasn't a major decrease so basically what I think is going on here is Apple just runs the CPU wild until it gets way up into the 90s and then it starts cooling it down so basically as much as your CPU can work up until it reaches its T Junction apples just gonna let that happen they prioritize quiet fans over a cool running CPU and this is evidence of that for yet more support of that let's talk about the fan speeds before the repay stand keep in mind all this testing was done with the stock fan curve I didn't mess around with it at all so this is just what ever Apple thinks is best for the computer so before the reap aced it took 4.1 seconds to reach 90 degrees Celsius because it basically just didn't run the fans CPU went whoop right up from idle to 90 in 4.1 seconds and after the reap aced it took 4.2 seconds pretty much the same thing they just let let the CPU go until it gets way too hot and then the fans kick in they don't do any sort of preventative cooling so that's annoying now here's what's really weird okay cuz that all kind of makes sense that's definitely sort of like oh okay yep that makes sense this is Apple we're talking about of course I gotta just let the CPU run as hot as possible however what's weird is that the Cinebench scores went down after the reap aced before the averages were 1433 see B this is in Cinebench r20 afterwards 1393 don't know why there was some good news though some sort of evidence that this repai sness was actually worth doing and that was the idle temperatures before the repay stand i just sort of let the computer idle and reach a steady temperature it was going at 53 degrees Celsius after the reap aced we are looking at forty three point two degrees Celsius which is more well it's actually a little bit less than 10 degrees difference so that's really good because basically idle in terms of what Apple calls it is basically just running the fans at the minimum rpm so sometimes you could be running at 60 degrees Celsius on the CPU at idle Oh with the repay Sui are able to run a lot cooler at idle because even with the fans at their absolute minimum there's better heat conduction and were able to get heat out of the chassis a lot easier we also noticed a difference even the turbo speeds when I was running this beforehand it was running at 2.91 gigahertz this is a 2.6 base clock by the way and after the fact we're running at two point nine eight on average so a marginal improvement in the turbo speeds and then moving over to Geekbench for the average over three runs actually did improve pretty noticeably so before the repay suis were looking at an average score of fifteen thousand three hundred and two in the multi-core test and after the repays fifteen thousand seven hundred and fourteen so that's definitely a noticeable improvement so basically what I would think here is that you're gonna be noticing differences in the temperatures when you're at idle whenever it's able to cool a lot more easily and in short bursts where it takes a little bit longer for the CPU to heat up when you're running under load it's not gonna make a huge amount of difference because frankly Apple just lets the CPU get as hot as possible before it kicks the fans in because they really only care about having the fans be quiet they don't care about trying to get more performance out of the processor so under load not a huge difference at idle and in short bursts I think it's definitely a noticeable difference so hopefully that will help you guys if you're thinking about replacing your thermal paste honestly with something like this retina MacBook Pro where you don't even have to take the logic board out I would recommend doing it just for the peace of mind and to improve the CPU temps a little bit at idle it's worth doing it only took me like 10 minutes to change the pace so I would definitely recommend it so that'll do it for today's video let me know down in the comments below do you think this thermal paste replacement was worth it as usual make sure to LIKE comment and subscribe don't forget to follow me on twitter at luke me on e and please consider joining my subreddit if you have any questions and as usual I will see you all in the next videoso in this video I want to find out just how much of a difference does it make to change the thermal paste on a macbook so I've talked about this before I even have a tutorial from quite a while ago on how to replace the thermal paste on a retina macbook pro such as this and I've talked about some of the benefits of it but the real question that I want to talk about today is just how much are you going to notice it and doesn't really matter now of course your mileage may vary depending on the thermal paste that you use and which model you're doing this on I know for example Quinn from snazzy labs had a lot of success upgrading the thermal paste on a 20-18 macbook pro because just by default the factory thermal paste that Apple and really most laptops use its kind of crap so what we're gonna do today is take my late 2013 MacBook Pro it's a Retina it's got a Haswell CPU this thing is actually pretty powerful for its age it actually outperforms like 2017 MacBook Pros which is kind of embarrassing for them and we're just gonna replace it with some cheap like five dollar thermal paste that I got at Micro Center really nothing fancy not doing liquid metal this is just your standard you know thermal paste so what I want to know is is this going to be a substantial difference am I gonna be like wow or will I even notice at all so before I started filming I gathered some data some Cinebench runs some Geekbench runs temperatures as well as the time taken to reach 100 degrees Celsius which is the t-junction time to reach 90 degrees Celsius and also what the fan and temperature curves look like once the machine is under load so with all that in mind I'm gonna change the thermal paste and we're gonna see what changes alright so with the heatsink off oh this is not is that good hello alright so here's what it looks like without the heatsink on and do you see how much of the CPU and GPU die are reflecting there's like barely any thermal paste on here look at how spotty that is it looks awful it's all sort of clumped up around where the CPU and GPU are on the heatsink which is just not good so definitely definitely going to replace that definitely a need of replacement one of the things I'm also gonna do is clean out these heat sinks because not too bad but they could use a little dusting and that should help with the airflow nuts camera wasn't recording when I was putting it back together but oh well heat sink is back on this is a super simple process all you need is one of these what's this a p5 screwdriver pop the back off and then all you need is I think it's a t5 yeah a t5 to take off the heatsink screws that's literally it like I would make a tutorial but I'm kind of lazy and also it's really it's just a couple of screws with two different screw bits and you can kind of just figure it out so it's really not that complicated let's turn this thing back on okie dokie ladies and gentlemen the results are in and they're weird alright so I've written down all of the things that I took note of so first let's talk about the temperatures and really this was more insightful in terms of what it told me about the way Apple cools their machines from a software side then how this thermal paste makes a difference because essentially what I noticed was the temperatures didn't change when I was running benchmarks so in Cinebench before the thermal paste we were looking at 96 and a half 96 point eight and ninety eight point one average temperatures then after the Reap aced ninety five point two ninety four point eight ninety two point seven so mild mild - decreases it really wasn't a major decrease so basically what I think is going on here is Apple just runs the CPU wild until it gets way up into the 90s and then it starts cooling it down so basically as much as your CPU can work up until it reaches its T Junction apples just gonna let that happen they prioritize quiet fans over a cool running CPU and this is evidence of that for yet more support of that let's talk about the fan speeds before the repay stand keep in mind all this testing was done with the stock fan curve I didn't mess around with it at all so this is just what ever Apple thinks is best for the computer so before the reap aced it took 4.1 seconds to reach 90 degrees Celsius because it basically just didn't run the fans CPU went whoop right up from idle to 90 in 4.1 seconds and after the reap aced it took 4.2 seconds pretty much the same thing they just let let the CPU go until it gets way too hot and then the fans kick in they don't do any sort of preventative cooling so that's annoying now here's what's really weird okay cuz that all kind of makes sense that's definitely sort of like oh okay yep that makes sense this is Apple we're talking about of course I gotta just let the CPU run as hot as possible however what's weird is that the Cinebench scores went down after the reap aced before the averages were 1433 see B this is in Cinebench r20 afterwards 1393 don't know why there was some good news though some sort of evidence that this repai sness was actually worth doing and that was the idle temperatures before the repay stand i just sort of let the computer idle and reach a steady temperature it was going at 53 degrees Celsius after the reap aced we are looking at forty three point two degrees Celsius which is more well it's actually a little bit less than 10 degrees difference so that's really good because basically idle in terms of what Apple calls it is basically just running the fans at the minimum rpm so sometimes you could be running at 60 degrees Celsius on the CPU at idle Oh with the repay Sui are able to run a lot cooler at idle because even with the fans at their absolute minimum there's better heat conduction and were able to get heat out of the chassis a lot easier we also noticed a difference even the turbo speeds when I was running this beforehand it was running at 2.91 gigahertz this is a 2.6 base clock by the way and after the fact we're running at two point nine eight on average so a marginal improvement in the turbo speeds and then moving over to Geekbench for the average over three runs actually did improve pretty noticeably so before the repay suis were looking at an average score of fifteen thousand three hundred and two in the multi-core test and after the repays fifteen thousand seven hundred and fourteen so that's definitely a noticeable improvement so basically what I would think here is that you're gonna be noticing differences in the temperatures when you're at idle whenever it's able to cool a lot more easily and in short bursts where it takes a little bit longer for the CPU to heat up when you're running under load it's not gonna make a huge amount of difference because frankly Apple just lets the CPU get as hot as possible before it kicks the fans in because they really only care about having the fans be quiet they don't care about trying to get more performance out of the processor so under load not a huge difference at idle and in short bursts I think it's definitely a noticeable difference so hopefully that will help you guys if you're thinking about replacing your thermal paste honestly with something like this retina MacBook Pro where you don't even have to take the logic board out I would recommend doing it just for the peace of mind and to improve the CPU temps a little bit at idle it's worth doing it only took me like 10 minutes to change the pace so I would definitely recommend it so that'll do it for today's video let me know down in the comments below do you think this thermal paste replacement was worth it as usual make sure to LIKE comment and subscribe don't forget to follow me on twitter at luke me on e and please consider joining my subreddit if you have any questions and as usual I will see you all in the next video\n"