How Noisy is your iMac?

[TyPod]

My late 2012 is absolutely silent. Can't hear it one bit.

 

[Chippy99]

Sure when you test it in a studio/lab you can classify it as slightly noisy. In the real-world, the dBs this pumps out are so low that you can classify it as negligible, in other words you don't hear it, aka dead silent. Sure you may hear it roaring up when you're running Metro 2020, but even at that point you'll be listening to the TV, music, or your GF nag on about something.

Well I have a perfectly normal 2012 iMac and I am sitting here typing with the TV on in the background and I can hear it perfectly well. It has no disks internally and the external disks have spun down, and I can clearly hear the fan and airflow. Is in a problem, or even a distraction? No. Is it silent? "in other words you don't hear it, aka dead silent"? Definitely not.

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My late 2012 is absolutely silent. Can't hear it one bit.

You have impaired hearing. Not even Apple claim it is silent, because it isn't.

 

[ekiro]

Well I have a perfectly normal 2012 iMac and I am sitting here typing with the TV on in the background and I can hear it perfectly well. It has no disks internally and the external disks have spun down, and I can clearly hear the fan and airflow. Is in a problem, or even a distraction? No. Is it silent? "in other words you don't hear it, aka dead silent"? Definitely not.

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You have impaired hearing. Not even Apple claim it is silent, because it isn't.

You sure you don't have a mosquito trapped in your ear canal?

 

[RoryO]

Just out of curiosity what did you get instead? Have you received it yet? Did it fix your noise issue?

I haven't reordered yet. I was going to go for a 27" base model again with just an SSD upgrade, as I was happy with just the slight fan noise on my original after I span the disk down. But I can't decide between 256 and 512GB, I'd like to save money as I also need to spend money on a bigger backup solution as I will no longer have one HDD in the machine itself, so now need two externals for backup, but I'm slightly worried about 256GB not being enough or being hard to resell. I was also waiting for the Mac Pro announcement just in case it was affordable...

 

[TyPod]

You have impaired hearing. Not even Apple claim it is silent, because it isn't.

I really don't think I do. Honestly I feel like the only thing I can hear is my external drives.

 

[Chippy99]

I really don't think I do. Honestly I feel like the only thing I can hear is my external drives.

I was only joking by the way ;-)

But genuinely, ALL late 2012 and 2013 iMacs are clearly audible in a silent room. Perhaps you have a bit of background noise from elsewhere masking it. Anyway, it's good you can't hear yours!

Cheers

 

[OpTic Jayex]

My iMac is pretty quiet. I hear some noise, but it's from the fan since I now have an SSD. It's quiet for a 2008 iMac.

 

[Jovian9]

I just got the latest 27" maxed out with the 3TB fusion drive and the only time I ever really notice it is when HandBrake is running. A LOT quieter than my previous mid-2011 iMac.

I usually have a ceiling fan on in the room and a few external drives are running so they drown out any noise it might actually be making.