What is the hottest safe running temperature for a MacBook Pro?

The bottom case is a heat sink so it will get hot. I have a new 15inch pro with Lion and it seems to only cut in the fans at 80ish deg C, and a few times core reached 99 decC, and it is still working fine. It ususlly does it while cataloging new files, and as I have Photoshop elements i caught it using auto-analyser in an idle moment, where it rapidly got to 99, fans cut in, and all OK. Naturally i disabled autoanalyse as it's a cpu hog. In all this, and reading other posts, i am assuming this is all normal.

The MacBook Pro isn't adverse to periods of high temperature, but it's always good to avoid them. 170 degrees F is an acceptable upper level, but you'll want to find ways to lower the heat.

1. Don't use your MBP on your lap. You'd be surprised how common this practice is; this raises the temperature of your laptop by twenty degrees, constantly. Use your MBP on a table.

2. Avoid intensive operations for long periods of time. It's okay to use your machine as it's supposed to be, but a MBP isn't a desktop computer. Intersperse high-temperature use with low-temperature to let your MBP cool a bit.

3. Download an application like SMC Fan Control http://www.eidac.de to help you manually increase the fan. If you have a more recent Mac, look for http://codykrieger.com/gfxCardStatus GFX Card Status, which allows you to moderate graphics use on your MacBook.

I just created a dve from movie clips. Pro was on a desk. The cores ran for an hour at 90 C fans at full pelt, and activity manager showed 735% . I am just hoping Apple know what they are doing!

It certainly beats my Thinkpad which took 6 hours.