MacBook Neo Thermal Mod Can Boost Performance Up to 20%
If you’re the tech tinkerer type and you don’t mind potentially voiding your MacBook Neo warranty, you can perform a little quick modification to your Neo that can make it perform up to 20% faster under heavy workloads. This is a pretty simple mod that aims to reduce thermal throttling behavior of the CPU, and it’s achieved by adhering a thermal pad to the A18 chip that allows it to dissipate heat through the aluminum enclosure on the MacBook Neo.
All you need is a the following:
- $10 thermal pad to stick to the CPU
- A pentalobe screwdriver to open the bottom case of the MacBook Neo
- A MacBook Neo itself
- About 10 minutes of your time to have the mod installed and ready to go
The upside? Performance gains by reducing CPU throttling under load, reported online at up to 20% improvements under heavy load, and 10-12+ FPS higher frame rates in games.
The downside? Your MacBook Neo bottom case is going to get a lot warmer, since the thermal pad is now dissipating heat to the aluminum chassis. Oh, and it’s likely this voids your MacBook Neo warranty, and it might reduce battery longevity as well since batteries do not like heat.
The MacBook Neo is a phenomenal laptop for most users but if you want to push it a bit further while keeping costs low, and you have a tinkerer mindset, the thermal mod might be something you’re interested in. Thermal throttling is completely normal behavior for every modern device and computer, but for fanless Macs like the Neo and Air, these thermal mods can boost their performance a bit further.
And yes this works the same with the base model MacBook Neo and the 512GB Touch ID model too, in all colors.
The thermal pad mods were first used by some MacBook Air users to improve performance, with the same caveats, and now tinkerers are applying the same thermal mod to the MacBook Neo with the same efficacy (and again, the same caveats). Thanks to brainrot clips on TikTok and YouTube, the thermal mod for MacBook Neo is going somewhat viral, so it’s possible a fair number of users will end up trying this out on their own.
Check out the videos below, from TikTok and YouTube, for additional information and video walkthroughs on how to perform the mod yourself, if you’re interested.
The viral TikTok:
@mryeester Testing the thermal pad modification on a MacBook Neo. By adding just a small strip of thermal pad directly on the laptop's CPU, we can essentially use the bottom of the case a heatsink, which helps prevent the processor from thermal throttling! #pc #pctips #pcbuilding #mryeester ♬ original sound – mryeester
Another video walkthrough:
And another on the thermal mod:
And this video walkthrough is good but skip the first two minutes (skip to 1:50) because it’s got the standard rambling two minutes intro ad that pollutes basically every YouTube video these days:
And don’t forget if you’re shopping for a Neo, Amazon has them available at a little discount with quick delivery, and yes these are affiliate links that mean if you make a purchase the site makes a few bucks to help pay for our costs:
- MacBook Neo – 256GB – Indigo Blue – $589
- MacBook Neo – 512GB w/ Touch ID – Indigo – $689
- MacBook Neo – 256GB – Silver – $589
- MacBook Neo – 512GB w/ Touch ID – Silver – $689
- MacBook Neo – 256GB – Citrus – $589
- MacBook Neo – 512GB w/ Touch ID – Citrus – $689
- MacBook Neo – 256GB – Blush pink – $589
- MacBook Neo – 512GB w/ Touch ID – Blush pink – $689
What do you think? Is it worth modding the MacBook Neo and voiding the warranty to reduce thermal throttling and get some extra performance under load and for gaming? Or would you rather go to some of the less controversial routes to keep a Mac cool to optimize performance? Share your thoughts in the comments.
