The silence is golden thread

[johnnymg]

Greets

Just measured the noise from my 2010 3.2 GHz (5770) MP.

Front grill top: dBA 44.5, dBC 54
Front grill middle/bottom: dBA 46, dBC 56

Sound level at ear level with MP under the desk:
dBa 40
dBc 50

I'm using an American Recorder SPL-8810 sound level meter.

Qualitatively, I'd call the sound level as quiet with a mid/low frequency tone. This is in a smallish room. In a larger room (office/work) I might not even hear the slight hum of the MP.

For sound/music editors a little bit of sound foam might be useful. 🙂
cheers
JohnG

 

[yoink]

Thanks so much for taking the time to measure and share!

I hope others can chime in with their results for varying 2010 MP configurations. I have an old 2006 MP in my control room and I still find it a bit "annoying." It's quiet all right, quieter than any PC I had before it (and I'm a SilentPCReview.com kind of guy)... but I am hope the 2010 MPs are even better.

I'd rather not have to splurge for an ISO box.

 

[chrono1081]

I hear a little buzzing sound every now and then, almost like a REALLY fast vibration. I just tug on my towers handle and it goes away. Its from the back and its one of the cables that is plugged in, I think the mini display port. The sound stops if I remove or jiggle the mini display port cable.

 

[2contagious]

If my PSU wasn't buzzing/whining and my 5870 card's fan wouldn't make a non-constant "blowing-into-an-empty-bottle" sound, I'd say the 2010 Mac Pro is an incredibly silent desktop computer. I just hope I'll get rid of those two problems some day.

 

[phil-z]

Greets

Just measured the noise from my 2010 3.2 GHz (5770) MP.

Front grill top: dBA 44.5, dBC 54
Front grill middle/bottom: dBA 46, dBC 56

Sound level at ear level with MP under the desk:
dBa 40
dBc 50

I'm using an American Recorder SPL-8810 sound level meter.

Qualitatively, I'd call the sound level as quiet with a mid/low frequency tone. This is in a smallish room. In a larger room (office/work) I might not even hear the slight hum of the MP.

For sound/music editors a little bit of sound foam might be useful. 🙂
cheers
JohnG

This matches my experience. Some reports of silent Mac Pros make me feel as if mine is faulty. There's no way I'd say mine was silent - quiet with a low hum (I think from the CPU fan).

 

[raptorsoft2000]

I find almost NO noise whatsoever coming from my Mac Pro 2006 model 2 x dual 2.66. I DO hear a lot of noise that I know comes from the hard drives when they are in heavy use, I don't know what you call it, but it's that funny noise when I guess the heads or whatever are moving over the platters. It's almost like grains of sand or pellets of some sort trickling on the ground, or like a soft rain. Weirdest sound to describe but I'm sure everyone here knows that sound, and NO it's not my disks failing, it's not a clicking. And oh yea, I hear a very subtle sound coming from my SATA RAID box that has a fan in it to cool the drives, and I probably hear that disk sound coming from those disks too. But other than hard drives I hear almost nothing. I should switch to SSD's and I would know really how quiet my MP is!

 

[phil-z]

I have the 2010 3.2 GHz (5770) MP and have taken it in to a store but the Genius didn't think there was a problem. After reading these posts I'm still left thinking that mine is noisy!

 

[Umbongo]

I find almost NO noise whatsoever coming from my Mac Pro 2006 model 2 x dual 2.66. I DO hear a lot of noise that I know comes from the hard drives when they are in heavy use, I don't know what you call it, but it's that funny noise when I guess the heads or whatever are moving over the platters. It's almost like grains of sand or pellets of some sort trickling on the ground, or like a soft rain. Weirdest sound to describe but I'm sure everyone here knows that sound, and NO it's not my disks failing, it's not a clicking. And oh yea, I hear a very subtle sound coming from my SATA RAID box that has a fan in it to cool the drives, and I probably hear that disk sound coming from those disks too. But other than hard drives I hear almost nothing. I should switch to SSD's and I would know really how quiet my MP is!

Which graphics card do you have? The 7300GT doesn't have a fan, and often graphics card fans are the nosiest part.