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