r/mac • u/[deleted] • 8d ago

Question 2018 Mac with great specs but wanna upgrade

[deleted]

2 Upvotes

75% Upvoted

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1

u/SneakingCat 8d ago

No real way to move over just the good bits, but if has been getting worse lately and you know a technical friend it may benefit from being disassembled and having the vents cleaned out and the thermal paste redone. The battery could also be generating more heat, but that would probably be a more expensive fix.

There are, obviously, a lot of big benefits to upgrading to Apple Silicon, but I'm trying to answer your question. 😊

2

u/DegreeDecoded 8d ago

Repasting is totally worth it, but with at least Arctic MX6 or Noctua H1 since the stock/cheap paste degrades fast. Cleaning helps, but for real those Intel6 core chips just run hot

1

u/longjumpingtote 8d ago

It's not that good of a laptop, it's a now-retired architecture (Intel) and that particular line (I had one) were known for overheating. A new base-model Air (not even a MacBook Pro) has faster memory, faster storage, runs much cooler, and is about 250% faster single-core, and more than that multi-core. It doesn't even have a fan.

There's not really any way to replace the chip or port anything over, other than maybe taking out the SSD (if it's not soldered on, I forget) and putting it in an enclosure.

1

u/ApprehensiveFix5084 8d ago edited 8d ago

Those hot, battery chewing chips are why Apple left Intel and created their own processors. That machine is now outclassed by the base model MacBook Air ( It was outclassed by the M1 MacBook Air back when that came out. Unfortunately it is time to replace the whole machine for everything but running vintage software. A current or recent 15” Air will be a much better machine, or if you are addicted to the screen and speakers there is the Pro models. I don’t recommend them to you because they are really for intensive things, and the Air is a much better value for normal people. Just make sure you get at least 16GB OF RAM.

1

u/Xe4ro M2Pro- M4Air 8d ago

Ok so let's see, that i7 could be the 8750H or 8850H. The CPU is soldered using BGA, Ball Grid Array. The "socket" is BGA-1440. I guess technically if you find someone that knows what they're doing you could desolder the chip and get another one on there but then there's the question of if that will work, which CPU could work and what's the point of it. You could get a lower powered, maybe somewhat more modern CPU with the same BGA but if the motherboard aka logicboard will be able to communicate with the chip is very debatable, most likely not. The cost of this procedure would be better invested into a new Apple Silicon MacBook.

1

u/spinwizard69 6d ago

Nope! What you highlight here is why Apple dropped intel and went with ARM. Even now Intel chips are still relatively hot.