13" i5 turns fans off when idling

[Ploki]

the i5 doesn't even turn on fans when idling and surfing web; it cools completely passively.

I haven't seen this reported anywhere, seems like a neat feature and unique to the i5 from the 2018 lineup.

Can anyone else confirms this? It's a feature, it's not just mine malfunctioning right?

 

[DeanPSN]

Its normal.
The 13inch does that, the 15inch is idling at around 2000rpm.

 

[RobbieTT]

Yep, normal running. The 2018 MBP runs very cool with the normal brace of productivity apps running - so no fan, no noise and sipping the power:

 

[filmbuff]

Based on the type of topics we usually get on here I thought this was going to be a complaint and you were going to ask if you should return it because the fans only run at a high workload.

 

[buran-energia]

13 inchers have been doing that for a while now. Even i7 does it (at least on 2017 TB), but I guess less frequently than i5.

 

[GoldfishRT]

The flip side of not managing thermals aggressively has lead to MacBooks being just about the quietest laptops on the planet.

Good for web surfers, bad for video producers.

I generally appreciate the approach.

 

[robvas]

Running at full-tilt my 15" is much louder than my 13" nTB

Make sense - 45 watt TDP i7, plus a GPU, compared to a 15 watt TDP cpu. I don't have a TB 13" here to test the 28 watt TDP CPU

 

[Ploki]

Running at full-tilt my 15" is much louder than my 13" nTB

Make sense - 45 watt TDP i7, plus a GPU, compared to a 15 watt TDP cpu. I don't have a TB 13" here to test the 28 watt TDP CPU

runs pretty quiet compared to the 15" that i had.
Out of the three 2018 I'd rank them:
- 15" - loud. fans spun faster than on my 2012. but still quiet at idle, it just spins up much faster, except "idle" has a lower threshold now.
- Mini - not loud
- 13" - is this thing on?

 

[filmbuff]

Didn't Apple start using fans with different size blades to actively cancel noise circa 2012? Are they still doing that?

 

[Cashmonee]

My i7 is currently in a dual monitor setup (the attached and an external) browsing the web with 0 RPM on the fans. These are definitely very quiet machines when not taxed. It is in fact quieter than the 2018 mini I had mostly due to that having intermittent coil whine.

 

[Ploki]

Didn't Apple start using fans with different size blades to actively cancel noise circa 2012? Are they still doing that?

Yeah they did, i think the first laptop to have used them was the MBA.

Also, 2012 15" actually seemed quieter to me than the 2018 15"..

But the 13" are in another class. super duper quiet