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5K iMac; Warm, Loud and a response from Apple
- Thread starter Angeldust
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2nd iMac arrived...
aaaaand... it's still louder than it should be. The fan admittedly sounds less-decentered/rattle-y than it did, but in a quiet room it's still the most audible thing. If I plug in an external HDD, that is certainly louder than the mac.
I have written to Apple to see what they suggest- I'll post back when I hear. I think that I'll be told that the noise is within specification and to ****, which after what I've read here just sounds like hot air. We shall see.
aaaaand... it's still louder than it should be. The fan admittedly sounds less-decentered/rattle-y than it did, but in a quiet room it's still the most audible thing. If I plug in an external HDD, that is certainly louder than the mac.
I have written to Apple to see what they suggest- I'll post back when I hear. I think that I'll be told that the noise is within specification and to ****, which after what I've read here just sounds like hot air. We shall see.
If an external hard drive is louder than the Mac, then I don't think it's really that big a problem...
I have my fan set to 1800 (vs the standard 1200) RPM and it's not noticeable. Then again I have several drive enclosures with fans and they make the lion's share of noise.
Thanks for your reply,
the new fan, as I said doesn't have the same disconcerting sound that the last one had,so that's an improvement. I guess that with the usual peripherals, if it isn't audible above them, it should be considered an acceptable amount of noise?
the new fan, as I said doesn't have the same disconcerting sound that the last one had,so that's an improvement. I guess that with the usual peripherals, if it isn't audible above them, it should be considered an acceptable amount of noise?
Impossible to say. External harddisks can range from completely silent to very loud indeed. So it says nothing really that your peripherals are louder.
If possible, try to make a recording of the sound. Then perhaps we can judge if it sounds right or not. Other than that I think only you can judge if the sound is acceptable or not.
You've made a very good point.
Perhaps I'm a little too sensitive to fan noise? I suppose that it comes from just not knowing whether people are embellishing the silence of their machines and then doubting mine or from genuinely just being overly sensitive to the sound of a fan.
I have to admit my 2011 iMac made a butt load of fan noise and after a while I really did not like it and sold it. If you make a living on a computer and are on it for hours on end, the noise is a big issue. When I first started editing back in 1994 we would put all drives and towers in a separate room for that reason alone. You have to mix audio, clients in the room, etc. I chose the late 2013 iMac because by all accounts it was very quiet and so far I have yet to hear the fan at all after 7 juicy final cut and after effects projects. Great screen or not, if an all in one is too noisy to be used comfortably day in and day out, it's crossed off my list for creative studio work.
I think personal computers have evolved to a point where the expectation is that it's not a piece of equipment that you use for a couple of minutes with hearing protection on like a power tool on a construction site.
I think personal computers have evolved to a point where the expectation is that it's not a piece of equipment that you use for a couple of minutes with hearing protection on like a power tool on a construction site.
I've had my 2013 iMac for the past year and only heard the fan just a few times while Final Cut Pro X was rendering.
Last night I was setting up my riMac and already heard the fan 3 times during the migration. Didn't last long. The fan spun up for about 30 seconds then faded out. When I start doing heavy projects, I can already tell it's going to get interesting.
Last night I was setting up my riMac and already heard the fan 3 times during the migration. Didn't last long. The fan spun up for about 30 seconds then faded out. When I start doing heavy projects, I can already tell it's going to get interesting.
It would be interesting to hear more from people like yourself who are doing real, non-gaming work on both retina and non-retina iMacs. Please keep us posted as you do more heavy projects.
If you're in a room with no other noises, you can hear the iMac if you have normal hearing - it's just audible, but you will hear fan noise/air that's coming out the back vent. Yes, an external spinning drive is loud enough to hear over the normal 1200rpm fan noise being produced by the iMac.
As mentioned, do a recording of the sound so we can hear it.
I must have gotten one of the quiet ones
The fan in my Retina iMac with the M295X is audible when the GPU temp is 100°C (highest I've seen), but not it is not loud at all. I play the Mac version of Civ V and the fans in my 2006 Mac Pro with a 5770 GPU would howl playing the same game at a lower resolution. On the new machine, the game sounds drown the fan out at normal volume.
The fan in my Retina iMac with the M295X is audible when the GPU temp is 100°C (highest I've seen), but not it is not loud at all. I play the Mac version of Civ V and the fans in my 2006 Mac Pro with a 5770 GPU would howl playing the same game at a lower resolution. On the new machine, the game sounds drown the fan out at normal volume.
You guys are making this way too complicated. The new rimac's (especially the top end ones) are kicking on the fan to quite noticeable levels on a regular basis with not much of a load, like a simple TM backup. This seems to be the new "normal" and I don't see this changing with the current hardware.
Yes, you're sensitive to fan noise, and probably lots of other noises too. That's not a slight against you. I'm the same way. I've just dealt with a lot of electronics in my time and have learned to "accept" things because there's no real choice in the matter. If you want a 5K iMac now, you need to accept the design - along with the heat and fan noise. That's just how it goes.
I really appreciate this answer. You're right, I do tend to notice noises more than the average person might. I must say, if I wasn't coming from a 2010 iMac that had definitely gotten a little long in the tooth, I would be inclined to wait for a product cycle before jumping on this one. The early adopter fee, it seems!
Well, every product has its downsides. I came from a 2012, so it's even harder for me. It's like staring at the same chassis (screen aside, of course!), and it's just not as good in pretty much every other way besides the screen. It's a good thing the screen is so good, or this iMac would be long gone.
Ah! I presume you came from SSD and specced up GPU? I must admit, I'm coming from an HDD, 512MB GPU and less-than-stellar screen. This thing does feel like a joy to use in that regard. It's just got a little noisier in the fan department.
Yep, I had a 2012, i7, 32GB RAM, SSD, Geforce GTX 680MX - top-of-the-line iMac at the time. Aside from the screen, the 5K iMac isn't much of an improvement, and is certainly a downgrade. Kinda sad I can't watch a 1080p YouTube video without the GPU hitting 100C. So it goes!
An HTML5-based YouTube video in Safari doesn't even kick on the fan for me. What browser do you use?
I was actually thinking the same thing, in Safari youtube doesn't really affect my GPU temp (unless I'm streaming 4K, even then it barely pushes 60, which doesn't affect the fan).
Try this in Chrome, for example - full screen 1080p:
https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/20573125/
Yes, I realize it's Chrome, but it's still oddities like this that never phased older iMacs.
Try this in full screen for 5-10 minutes.
http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/performance/Fireflies/default.html
That's quite a statement. Had the same late 2012 iMac - topped with a 512 SSD.
It was silent 99% of the time. I managed to get the fans going with on 1 or 2 occasions with a video rip or something.
I don't game, so I have no idea in that arena (who'd buy a Mac for Gaming?)
All these reports are disconcerting to say the least. If the GPU is a bad design decision (sure sounds like it from the many strings) it's gonna be hard for Apple to admit & any update will be silent in the next months to keep it that way.
Other than looking amazing, it sure seems like the 5k debut is a bust on the performance end.
am I wrong?
Maybe...maybe not. This is why I always thought that a retina iMac wasn't really going to be seen until fall '15 because of the gpu. But, surprise!
I don't think you're "wrong" per se. It depends. If you're doing heavy encoding etc, the new i7 CPU is an improvement over the i7 on the 2012, but if you're not - the 2012 i7 is VERY fast to this day, and you won't see any differences in day-to-day usage.
And yes, 99% of the time the 2012 high-end iMac was virtually silent. It was a wonder of design. The 5K iMac has a wonderful screen, but the rest isn't as good. Again, the screen upgrade is hard to argue with (though some people here do, of course!), but the rest of the machine I'm constantly reminded is a bit of a disappointment, which is a shame.
Please just admit that YouTube videos were a bad example, given how highly optimized Safari is.
The GPU is the only disappointment to be found. Everything else is either exactly the same or better, and the screen is much, much better.
If I were a gamer and the GPU really mattered I would have built a gaming PC
