A recent experiment by YouTuber ETA Prime has shown that the all-new MacBook Neo may have far more performance headroom than its modest specifications suggest. While the entry-level Apple notebook isn’t designed for gaming, relatively simple cooling modifications can dramatically improve both thermals and frame rates.
Out of the box, the MacBook Neo runs on the company’s A18 Pro chip with 8GB of unified memory and relies on a basic graphene thermal pad. Under these constraints, gaming performance is limited, with titles like No Man’s Sky hovering around 30fps at medium settings while the system hits thermal limits of up to 105°C.
It is also worth mentioning that iFixit called the entry-level Apple laptop the most repairable MacBook in 14 years. However, it only scored a 6 out of 10 for repairability.
Copper Cooling Mod
The first and most impactful upgrade involves replacing the stock graphene thermal pad with a copper-based solution. This requires removing the bottom cover and installing a copper shim alongside thermal paste and a higher-quality thermal pad, effectively improving heat transfer from the chip to the chassis.
With this modification alone, ETA Prime has observed that temperatures drop significantly to around 85°C under load, while performance sees a noticeable uplift. No Man’s Sky nearly doubles its frame rate to roughly 60fps under similar settings, showing how heavily the stock configuration is constrained by thermals.
Benchmark results also reflect this improvement. Geekbench 6 scores increase by approximately 15%, with both single-core and multi-core performance seeing measurable gains. The best part is that the modification fits within the original chassis, leaving the laptop’s external appearance unchanged.
External Liquid Cooling
Taking things further, ETA Prime paired the copper mod with an external thermoelectric cooler, effectively mimicking a liquid cooling setup. This device, typically designed for smartphones, attaches magnetically to the underside of the laptop and actively pulls heat away using a Peltier-based system.
This setup relies on the copper shim to transfer heat efficiently to the cooler. Without it, the stock graphene pad does not provide a sufficient pathway for heat dissipation, which explains why the MacBook Neo throttles heavily in its default configuration.
With the external cooler in place, idle temperatures can drop into the 20°C range, while load temperatures stabilise in the 70s. This allows the A18 Pro to sustain higher performance without thermal throttling.
The result is a substantial jump in gaming performance. As demonstrated by ETA Prime, No Man’s Sky can reach averages of around 80 to 90fps, while Fallout 4 becomes playable at 60fps despite running through a compatibility layer. Cyberpunk 2077 also manages a stable 30fps at low settings, though more demanding titles like Red Dead Redemption 2 remain out of reach. Synthetic benchmarks improve further as well, with Geekbench 6 scores rising up to 18.6% in single-core and 17.5% in multi-core performance compared to stock.
Not For Everyone
Despite the impressive gains, these modifications are far from practical for most users. Furthermore, doing so will also void the warranty of your shiny new MacBook Neo (whenever it arrives in Malaysia).
Still, the experiment highlights how much performance is being held back by thermal limitations. With adequate cooling, the A18 Pro demonstrates significantly higher sustained performance, suggesting that the hardware itself is more capable than Apple’s default configuration allows.
To recap, the MacBook Neo starts at RM2,499 in Malaysia, with education pricing set at RM2,099. Customers can order it via Apple’s official channels and authorised resellers, although Apple has yet to confirm when the entry-level configuration will be widely available locally.
(Source: ETA Prime [Youtube])
