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2020 i9 Fan Noise

AeroUK

AeroUK

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jan 6, 2008
380
37
New York
I have had the i9 top spec iMac for a week and it is a great machine but I hear the fan quietly at all times. Only 2015 iMac I would not hear the fan when doing basic tasks.

Are all of the 2020 configurations like this or is it something to do with the i9 or graphics card that I chose?
 
Does the fan ramp up from quiet to more loud, or is it always just at base level?

The base speed on the fans are 1200 RPM, so yeah you can hear it if you *really* try, or just have really good hearing and no ambient noise. I have the top end model as well and don't notice it unless the fans are ramped up. You might want to try a free trial of TG Pro and see if your fan speed is at the base speed and then report back what it says for fan speed!.
 
Hey thanks! You got the i9 with the top end graphics card? Are you sure there is no fan noise at all after a restart? It’s quiet but I hear it. My fans are also at 1200. My 2015 is totally silent in the same situation...
 
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AeroUK said:
Hey thanks! You got the i9 with the top end graphics card? Are you sure there is no fan noise at all after a restart? It’s quiet but I hear it. My fans are also at 1200. My 2015 is totally silent in the same situation...
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Yep, i9 5700XT. Hmm yeah, well they are different processors and there's a lot more power in this, plus basically the same cooling system. Have you checked the RPM on the fan on the 2015?
 
Interesting, 33c on what? CPU? I don't think the CPU would be running at 33c. Mine averages around 55-60 when doing light work. Ok, so maybe there is a difference with the 1131 RPM versus the 1200... hard to imagine that would make a big difference but apparently it does. Hopefully it doesn't drive you crazy!

And I suppose it is possible that the i9 has a higher base speed than the i7 but someone with the i7 will have to kindly verify the base fan speed of their machine.
 
AeroUK said:
I have had the i9 top spec iMac for a week and it is a great machine but I hear the fan quietly at all times. Only 2015 iMac I would not hear the fan when doing basic tasks.

Are all of the 2020 configurations like this or is it something to do with the i9 or graphics card that I chose?
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I have the 2020 i9 10-Core with the 5700XT and it runs silently. I'm in a completely silent room and I don't hear any fan noise.
 
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I don't have an i9, but I had an i7 5500XT, which I returned. I now have an i7 5700. The 5700's fan is much quieter at 1200rpm than the 5500 XT's was. Both machines idle at about 34-38 degrees (light web browsing, Google Docs, etc). Perhaps different suppliers for the fans? Perhaps an initial QC issue? There is some actual variation going on here, which partly explains the widely differing opinions of fan noise in these machines all over these forums.
 
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Donnation said:
I have the 2020 i9 10-Core with the 5700XT and it runs silently. I'm in a completely silent room and I don't hear any fan noise.
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Same basic configuration and room type and I am shocked how quiet mine is! Was expecting more noise. Running in Catalina and Windows 10 about 10 hours a day for work.
 
Fellow noise hater here. :eek: I'm curious if it's the "idle" fan at 1200 rpm that's too loud for you guys? Or is it because the fan ramps up much faster even when only doing basic stuff? Or maybe both?

My 2013 iMac is acceptable at idle but very loud at higher speeds. Thankfully, basic stuff doesn't cause the fan to ramp up. So it's rarely annoying. But I worry about the 2020 iMac from what I hear other people reporting. It's currently holding me back from ordering.
 
Just checked my late 2015 21,5“ Retina iMac with Macs Fan Control - it says 1200 rpm minimum, so obviously that‘s not any different from the OP‘s iMac 2020. And I really have to focus on the fan noise, even in a quiet room, to hear it. However, my iMac doesn‘t have a discrete graphics card, only the integrated Iris graphics. So I guess an iMac with a discrete graphics card has an additional fan for the GPU that could potentially add noise?

I ordered an i7/5500XT 2020 iMac a couple of days ago. I really hope it‘s not noticeably louder than my 2015 iMac. I guess, if the fan noise is too loud, I‘ll send it back and wait for the Silicon models.
 
In my testing on a friend’s 2020 iMac i7 w/5500XT the fan ramped up fairly slowly when placed under load (e.g. HandBrake transcoding, Cinebench benchmark) and ramped back down pretty quickly once the load was removed. Unless it was loaded, the fan ran at 1200rpm. And the i7 was so quick that often the heavy lifting was completed before the fan fully ramped up, like in this Cinebench run :)

iMacBench4Sm.jpg

So I’d be more concerned about the fan noise level at 1,200 rpm, unless i did a lot of lenghty, heavy tasks, like HandBrake trans-coding, etc..

GetRealBro
 
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ThugFreak said:
You are right!
My late 2015 3.2 GHz i5 SSD 27'' iMac is completely silent. It's in a empty room with hardwood floor and no furniture. Only the iMac & my parrot's cage are in this room. The room is an echo chamber. I sit 2 feet in front of it. The fan has never ramped up since I've owned it. I can only hear it if I place my ear behind the iMac.
By the way, my 2013 27'' SSD iMac is completely silent too.
Describe the fan noise on your 2020 iMac. In what way is it annoying? I hate fan noise too.
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My 2015 gets loud under load but silent upon startup. The 2020 is quiet on startup but I can hear it. It just seems like a step back.
 
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So here’s an interesting data point.

To recap, I returned my first store stock iMac top tier due to a rattling loud fan. My BTO came last week with no rattle but with similarly louder fan air noise vs my 2017 BTO. I decided to pick up another store stock top tier with the i7 and 5500XT GPU due to Apple’s move to their ARM chips next time around.

The fan in this unit is much quieter! It’s not near silent like my 2017 from 18 inches away but I had to listen for it at idle, which I didn’t need to with my first 2 2020 units.

So it appears either Apple is having some serious QC issues with their fan supplier or there are multiple suppliers that build their cooling fans to different tolerances.
 
dsc888 said:
So here’s an interesting data point.

To recap, I returned my first store stock iMac top tier due to a rattling loud fan. My BTO came last week with no rattle but with similarly louder fan air noise vs my 2017 BTO. I decided to pick up another store stock top tier with the i7 and 5500XT GPU due to Apple’s move to their ARM chips next time around.

The fan in this unit is much quieter! It’s not near silent like my 2017 from 18 inches away but I had to listen for it at idle, which I didn’t need to with my first 2 2020 units.

So it appears either Apple is having some serious QC issues with their fan supplier or there are multiple suppliers that build their cooling fans to different tolerances.
Click to expand...

You may be correct. The fan is I think the only moving part in a 2020 iMac. For the record my BTO i9 with a 5700XT is silent unless I am maxing out the CPU cores. My 2014 MacBook Pro that was replaced with this iMac is much noisier. So is my NAS.
 
i7 here with 5500XT and it's dead silent at idle and under light load.

At first I noticed some noise and was a bit concerned about it, but it turned out to be my Time Machine HD, so now my hate has turned somewhere else.
I'm sure we all check for those sort of things but sometimes sound can be a bit tricky and mess with our brain . I noticed after unplugging all external drives and moving them somewhere else.
 
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AeroUK said:
I think I am going to return it. I was just wondering if the i7 version may be quieter.
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You are going to return your iMac for making a very silent fan noise when your temps are 33c and 1200 rpm? Seems foolish honestly. That's literally ideal temps and idle fan noise. i7 is the same 1200 rpm as well.
 
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