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RoryOz

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 6, 2015
4
1
Please help me understand why my 2020 imac is ramping up the fan so much.

specs:
2020 iMac i9 (10 core 64gb ram, 2tb Hd, Radeon 5500 xt).

These are some pics I took after working for about 30 min on a rather heavy project in Cubase 10.5 using Apogee element 24 soundcard.

As you can see from istat menus and fan apps: the Imac's CPU is not even at 50%, the ram is not even at 50%, I have got around 750gb free on my 2tb nvme drive, so I believe the issue comes form the graphics card.

As you can see the GPU shows no signs of Hardship in its CPU section but for some reason, The GPU's ram is almost 100% being used I believe that this might be the overheating issue here.

Fan starts getting loud to my taste @ around 1800rpm.

Do you have any idea on WHY this is happing?

Is it sidecar on my iPad pro 12.9 2020? (I use it via cable).

Is it my apple thunderbolt display 2nd monitor?

Is there something in Cubase using so much GPU ram?!

The only other software running in the background is Logitech Ghub.

p.s
yes, I AM aware of the iMac pro's dual fan system and no I do not think this is the answer to my question because the 2020 iMac system is more powerful in any aspect, and like the photos, I uploaded suggests the system is not even using half of its power.
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Some background and thoughts comparing to my imac pro:
Moved from a base iMac pro (8 core xeon, 32gb ram,vega 56, 1tb hd) to a 2020 iMac i9 (10 core 64gb ram, 2tb Hd, Radeon 5500 xt).
Main use: Audio recording, editing, mixing on Cubase 10.5.

Had my Imac pro for over 2.5 years and only once heard the fans ramp up and it was not even Cubase related, it was while gaming on max graphic setting (I don't usually game on an iMac).

The iMac pro NEVER ramped up the fans on audio editing regardless of how much CPU consuming the task was, even at the end of projects with all the vsts, etc.
Actually, I've never even heard of the mac fan control app up until now.
Other machines I worked on with Cubase 10.5 and a 2nd monitor:
Mac pro-2010 12 core with 16gb ram and the lousy graphic card that came with it and I have never heard its fan go wild when employing a 2nd monitor or at the end of a project.
Also had a chance to work with 16" Macbook Pro for a month and it was unbearably loud fan-wise.
Have a 1st gen i7 pc with a 5 year old and gpu ...again no fan loudness.

On the iMac 2020, the fan is WAY louder towards the end of a project or even if the room has no ac on.

This is quite annoying because I am dealing with audio here, I need complete silence in my studio otherwise the fan noise interferes with my listening experience or recording procedure.

All in all, I guess it was a bad decision selling my iMac pro, I guess I just listened to all those YouTube videos stating the new iMac is WAY more powerful than the iMac pro when in real life audio editing I see no difference.
 

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Last edited:
The fact that the GPU VRAM is almost fully utilized shouldn’t be a concern — that’s what my 5700 (non-XT) does when doing very light stuff such as web browsing.

As for the fan noise, keep in mind that the iMac Pro has a better cooling system with 2 fans rather than a single one in the regular iMac. You should have probably kept the Pro since you’re doing audio-related stuff.
 
This is why benchmarks are so useless... they aren't measuring real world usage, just a snippet of it. You got caught up in the New Toy hype... it's gonna get wild when the ARM Macs start shipping. Gotta have them new toys.

Just curious... why not edit the music with headphones on since the fans are just external noise?

If headphones are somehow not capable of rendering the sound properly, then I suppose the real question is, why have the CPU in the same room that you are editing in? Granted were talking all-in-ones here, but if noise from fans is that much of an issue, I would would run cables from another room (or from a dampener box) to the monitors on the desk. Your system supports multiple displays. Fan noise gone 100%.

All computers have fan noise. There is more than one way to get around it.
 
This is why benchmarks are so useless... they aren't measuring real world usage, just a snippet of it. You got caught up in the New Toy hype... it's gonna get wild when the ARM Macs start shipping. Gotta have them new toys.

Just curious... why not edit the music with headphones on since the fans are just external noise?

If headphones are somehow not capable of rendering the sound properly, then I suppose the real question is, why have the CPU in the same room that you are editing in? Granted were talking all-in-ones here, but if noise from fans is that much of an issue, I would would run cables from another room (or from a dampener box) to the monitors on the desk. Your system supports multiple displays. Fan noise gone 100%.

All computers have fan noise. There is more than one way to get around it.
Hi,
Yes: all computers do have fan noise to some degree but never have I encountered such present fan noise (other than MacBook Pro which is a nightmare tmho).
This is true to the 10-year-old first-generation Intel core i7 I have, to the iMac Pro I had, and the cheese grater mac pro 12 core I had.
They were all dead quiet no matter the task.

As to working with headphones, there are several software that emulate room sound within headphones i.e. meaning they manage to simulate acoustics of treated rooms but I think if it was That successful: people would not need to spend thousands of dollars on studio monitors and several extra thousand on acoustics.

As to putting my computer in another room...probably not going to happen...i have an imac.

I am however thinking about selling it and getting a pc.
 
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