In my experience, Intel Macs have always been that way. Every one I had was uncomfortably hot. My work Intel MBP’s fans would runs constantly, because everything would send its CPU through the roof. I always felt like I had to treat them with kid gloves to avoid the CPU running away on me. Webex meetings and screen sharing would always spike my CPU and make everything unusable. I’d have to stop sharing to actually do what I was trying to show someone. All this was before Apple Silicon even released, when Intel was the preferred chip. It was garbage.

This never happens anymore with the M1 Pro MBPs I have. I’ve never heard the fan spin up on my work MBP. I have heard it on my personal one, but I was actually pushing it, it wasn’t a random runaway process doing it, as was common on Intel.

I’d take a modern MacBook Air over the highest spec’d Intel Mac Apple ever made.