Experiences with MacBook Pro 14" using M4 Pro - Logic, fan noise?

[Peter_M]

Hi,

I've been thinking of getting a new Mac, for making music in Logic - using sample libraries, synth emulation, plugins etc.

First I thought of getting a Mac Mini, but the 14" MacBook Pro with the M4 Pro chip is very tempting.

Has anyone used this specific setup? If so, how often could you hear the fans?

I'm specifically staying away from the M4 Max chip, to avoid unwanted fan noise.

Any tips or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[dmccloud]

I have only heard air noise (not mechanical fan noise) when doing batch conversions of media files (FLAC - MP3, AVI/MKV - MP4, etc.). I can hear the air being exhausted from the MacBook, but not fan noise like I hear on my gaming PC when I set the fans to max RPM.

 

[Boppi]

The MacBook Pro M4/M4 Pro/M4 Max all run silent in general operation. Silent meaning the fans don't spin at all, not unless you're really pushing the processor in specific heavy load tasks. Other than that they're dead silent.

 

[raythompsontn]

I have pushed my M4 Pro at 100% for over 5 minutes rendering images. The fans come on as I can feel the warm air exhausting from the back. The fans do make a noise if I hold my ear close to the machine. At normal working distance the noise is barely audible.

 

[Boppi]

For reference, with my MacBook Pro M4 Pro, I have Safari open now as well as few other apps. The cores are barely over 100°F and the fans are not spinning.

 

[JSRinUK]

I have the MBP 14” M4P. The only time I hear anything from the fans is when I do LLM work for more than a couple of minutes. It’s the noise of air rather than the fans themselves.

When under sustained load like this, temperatures go up (making it uncomfortable to keep on your lap) and the battery drains quickly (about 2 hours).

For normal tasks, I don’t hear a peep from it and the battery lasts forever.

 

[cjsuk]

Spanking the crap out of mine (compiling, large data pipelines) and I rarely hear the fans at all. Does get a fair bit warmer than my M1 Pro did.

 

[dmccloud]

As an addendum - the air (not fan) noise on my M4 Pro 14" is the same as on the M2 Max it replaced. M4 as a whole is designed to run at higher temperatures without auto-throttling, so under certain use cases the fans will spin up near their max RPMs, but only in short bursts.