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i5 - i7 noticable heat and fan noise thread. The concensous is >
- Thread starter entatlrg
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It is hot for what he's doing. My 15" Pro is the same since Lion was installed though.
Doing the same thing in Snow Leopard left me at 50c most of the time. Now its up to 62c-66c, and the fans regularly kick in.
Lion has dramatically increased OS activity for some reason, only time will tell if it gets fixed.
Sorry but I have just purchased my first mac and since until now I have never purchased a computer for more than $350 I have never bothered to learn about such things. (just happy if the comp lasted 2 years) How would I know if there were dead pixels? Also how can I tell if the ssd and display are samsung as opposed to LG?
I've had my 13" i5 MacBook Air for 2 days now (my first mac) and have yet to hear the fan. I've watched HD video over wi-fi and downloaded large software updates. I had it on my lap for hours last night with shorts on and it never got above what I would call warm.
I've gone from the 11" 1.6GHZ to the 11" i7.
The i7 temp at idle is 55 C. The 1.6 ghz idle temp was around 45. The fans are quiet.
It's now a powerful machine in a small package, where previously it was an efficient machine in a small package.
your move
The i7 temp at idle is 55 C. The 1.6 ghz idle temp was around 45. The fans are quiet.
It's now a powerful machine in a small package, where previously it was an efficient machine in a small package.
your move
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If you worry about fan noise don't get the 1.8 i7. It's benefit is negligible. The i5 in the air has all the features normally associated with the i7 except it has 1 mb less cache.
Early i5 CPUs lacked features such as hyperthreading but sandybridge loads the i5 up.
If you worry about fan noise don't get the 1.8 i7. It's benefit is negligible. The i5 in the air has all the features normally associated with the i7 except it has 1 mb less cache.
Early i5 CPUs lacked features such as hyperthreading but sandybridge loads the i5 up.
Hard decision for me...
Hello, I'm glad to be here. I'll hope that you can help me.
Unfortunately I can not decide on a Prozessor for an MacBook Air 13".
I'd like to use it for 2 years and I only using it for work: Mail, iCal, Numbers, Pages. And private: Aperture, iPhoto, iTunes (Music, Movies, some Fun Games)
I don't now which a should choose for the 13 MBA: i5 with 1.7 GHz or i7 with 1.8 GHz?
- Regarding performance, what can I expect? What is the difference?
- Is it worth the investment of antother 100$?
- Regarding heat and battery life?
Thank you so much for helping me.
Hello, I'm glad to be here. I'll hope that you can help me.
Unfortunately I can not decide on a Prozessor for an MacBook Air 13".
I'd like to use it for 2 years and I only using it for work: Mail, iCal, Numbers, Pages. And private: Aperture, iPhoto, iTunes (Music, Movies, some Fun Games)
I don't now which a should choose for the 13 MBA: i5 with 1.7 GHz or i7 with 1.8 GHz?
- Regarding performance, what can I expect? What is the difference?
- Is it worth the investment of antother 100$?
- Regarding heat and battery life?
Thank you so much for helping me.
Oh, I don't think negligible is the right word for the 11". The 13" probably, but this stuff adds up
I had a perfectly good 16GHZ 11". I'm not going to upgrade to the same 1.6GHZ, even though it's not the same (if you no what I mean).
Heat is not an issue with me as I always use something in-between myself and the laptop.
Oh, I don't think negligible is the right word for the 11". The 13" probably, but this stuff adds up
Well, for the 11" its only a 12% clock speed bumb from 1.6 to 1.8. Assuming you configure an i5 with 4GB RAM I doubt you would sense the difference other than a few ticks on a benchmark tool. Unless you know you need the 4MB cache (vs 3MB in the i5) I would still stay away from the i7.
If I could get the new 13" in 1.6 I would for the sake of heat alone. The Air is a tough environment for the CPU (ironic given its name
)Of course I have been living with a Rev B Air as my primary machine and hence I have placed a premium on the laptop's portability and accept the fact that it will occasionally struggle (get used to beachballs with safari). No matter WHAT size or cpu you get the thing will have several bad hair days ahead.
Still, once you get used to these laptops you just cannot stop using them. They are like crack! so everyone enjoy your new Sandybridge Air and know I am jealous until I upgrade
-d
Just an update you guys. It seems like my i7 is now finally stable. It's hovering around 50 Celsius with many programs running. Today I left the machine running all day without going into sleep mode. I think it just may have need to index it self out. It's cool to the touch. Only time it got pretty warm was when I imported 11gb worth of photos into Aperture. That got to about 85 Celsius and 6k rpm. Keep in mind I won't be importing that daily. So far it appears to have cooled off quite a bit. Hopefully it stays that way.
Mate, how much data did you bring in? Just wondering.
Having free 185 out of 250GBs, I never had the "problem" with initial heat and fan you experienced (assuming the indexing was the cause).
Mind you, all my machines have the same amount of memory used... All my other stuff (some 500GBs) is externally stored..
I've gone from the 11" 1.6GHZ to the 11" i7.
The i7 temp at idle is 55 C. The 1.6 ghz idle temp was around 45. The fans are quiet.
It's now a powerful machine in a small package, where previously it was an efficient machine in a small package.
your move
What made you upgrade? You're happier with the i7? Notice the difference in speed or battery life?
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Well, for the 11" its only a 12% clock speed bumb from 1.6 to 1.8.
-d
Nope thats flawed. Your basing the machines on usage when not being worked , Your not taking into account turbo boost. 2.3 v 2.9 = 600 MHz difference. That is a sizeable percentage improvement when you actually need it.
Single thread: 2.9 vs 2.3 = 26%
Multi thread: 2.5 vs 2.0 = 25%
Yep, quite a difference there. There's also the extra MB of cache.
Damn! Just ordered the i7 MBA ultimate 2 days ago,
But now that i read all of the stories i' m getting worried.
The main reason i've orderd the 1.8ghz i7 isn't its clockspeed, i'm more interested in it's 4 mb L3 cache memory, because: A CPU cache is a cache used by the central processing unit of a computer to reduce the average time to access memory. The cache is a smaller, faster memory which stores copies of the data from the most frequently used main memory locations. As long as most memory accesses are cached memory locations, the average latency of memory accesses will be closer to the cache latency than to the latency of main memory.
When the processor needs to read from or write to a location in main memory, it first checks whether a copy of that data is in the cache. If so, the processor immediately reads from or writes to the cache, which is much faster than reading from or writing to main memory. (source: Wiki)
I thought the more memory the better 3vs4 is 25% more
And it rats 17w of power same as the i5, power is also heat
If the processor runs extremly hotter that the i5 it will need much more that 17w and so the battery life is also decreased.
WHAT TO DO
I still have the option to cancel the order and get one in stores tommorow,
If im cancelling an order what are the conditions ? Do i need to pay an % of the Total order?
But now that i read all of the stories i' m getting worried.
The main reason i've orderd the 1.8ghz i7 isn't its clockspeed, i'm more interested in it's 4 mb L3 cache memory, because: A CPU cache is a cache used by the central processing unit of a computer to reduce the average time to access memory. The cache is a smaller, faster memory which stores copies of the data from the most frequently used main memory locations. As long as most memory accesses are cached memory locations, the average latency of memory accesses will be closer to the cache latency than to the latency of main memory.
When the processor needs to read from or write to a location in main memory, it first checks whether a copy of that data is in the cache. If so, the processor immediately reads from or writes to the cache, which is much faster than reading from or writing to main memory. (source: Wiki)
I thought the more memory the better 3vs4 is 25% more
And it rats 17w of power same as the i5, power is also heat
If the processor runs extremly hotter that the i5 it will need much more that 17w and so the battery life is also decreased.
WHAT TO DO
I still have the option to cancel the order and get one in stores tommorow,
If im cancelling an order what are the conditions ? Do i need to pay an % of the Total order?
Mate, you really don't have to worry.
Vast majority of people with i7s do not report any issues (including me).
Some that did probably had increased heat due to indexing, it would appear...
Also, refer to this thread.
In any case, good luck..
I wouldn't worry if I were you.
13" MBAs are simply terrific machines...
I don't think you need to pay a restocking fee on an unopened -- or unreceived -- order.
Also, I've had the i7 for a couple of days now and to this point I'm good with the operating temperature and noise level (very quiet). It's too soon in my time with the machine to comment on battery life.
I shared your apprehensions when I brought the machine home but I'm about 95% comfortable I made the right call for me.
Also, I've had the i7 for a couple of days now and to this point I'm good with the operating temperature and noise level (very quiet). It's too soon in my time with the machine to comment on battery life.
I shared your apprehensions when I brought the machine home but I'm about 95% comfortable I made the right call for me.
I find this a bit strange. When the first Sandy Bridge(2nd generation Core i3/i5/i7) reviews were out, they noted that unlike previous chips, having the CPU at max achieved better battery life since the power management was much more advanced, and faster CPU allowed it to idle faster. So if that carried onto the 17W CPUs, the i7's at least shouldn't have lower battery life compared to the i5.
Originally Posted by Coen0s
I thought the more memory the better 3 vs 4mb is 25% more
and it eats 17w of power the same as the i5, power is heat
and if the processor runs extremly hotter than the i5, it will need much more than 17w of power and so the battery life is also decreased.
Some typing errors erased, that's what you get on a iPad
Just an update you guys. It seems like my i7 is now finally stable. It's hovering around 50 Celsius with many programs running. Today I left the machine running all day without going into sleep mode. I think it just may have need to index it self out. It's cool to the touch. Only time it got pretty warm was when I imported 11gb worth of photos into Aperture. That got to about 85 Celsius and 6k rpm. Keep in mind I won't be importing that daily. So far it appears to have cooled off quite a bit. Hopefully it stays that way.
Are any other people finding that their 13 inch i7 is calming down after a bit of time to settle in
Hello Friends-
The 13" MacBook Air i7 was the first apple laptop I have ever returned. Basically, with any sort of build script or CPU usage about 50%, my MBA would sound like a 1U server (too loud to handle) and would become too hot to touch. The machine was not indexing. I talked to several other i7 users and some had the same problem and some didn't. While returning it in the Apple store, I used an i5 and ran the CPU up to 200+% playing multiple YouTube 1080 hd videos. And there was minimal heat on the top left keyboard. The fan seemed relatively silent, although the store was busy. I held it up to my ear and struggled to hear it.
Other people have commented that they can't believe people would be so picky about a computer having a fan noise when its working... But I would suggest they weren't hearing what I was hearing. This thing literally sounded like a jet and because the space is so small it had a bit of a whistle due to so much air flow. Running anything 3d would super heat the system in under 30 seconds.
I wasn't being picky. My i7 was not usable as a lap machine. It wasn't anything that you could run at a coffee shop without getting the wrong kind of looks. It wasn't what I expect for $1699. it was the best performing Mac I ever used but sounded like it should be left in a server room. I had dreams of joking it up to a new thunderbolt monitor, but didn't want all that noise sitting on my desk while video editing.
In summary... I think mine was probably defective. But... I still believe that the i7s are considerably hotter and a bit louder than the i5s and for those that don't like super hot machines or noisy ones... Get the i5. The extra speed isn't really worth it if you don't want to use it because of the heat and noise.
The 13" MacBook Air i7 was the first apple laptop I have ever returned. Basically, with any sort of build script or CPU usage about 50%, my MBA would sound like a 1U server (too loud to handle) and would become too hot to touch. The machine was not indexing. I talked to several other i7 users and some had the same problem and some didn't. While returning it in the Apple store, I used an i5 and ran the CPU up to 200+% playing multiple YouTube 1080 hd videos. And there was minimal heat on the top left keyboard. The fan seemed relatively silent, although the store was busy. I held it up to my ear and struggled to hear it.
Other people have commented that they can't believe people would be so picky about a computer having a fan noise when its working... But I would suggest they weren't hearing what I was hearing. This thing literally sounded like a jet and because the space is so small it had a bit of a whistle due to so much air flow. Running anything 3d would super heat the system in under 30 seconds.
I wasn't being picky. My i7 was not usable as a lap machine. It wasn't anything that you could run at a coffee shop without getting the wrong kind of looks. It wasn't what I expect for $1699. it was the best performing Mac I ever used but sounded like it should be left in a server room. I had dreams of joking it up to a new thunderbolt monitor, but didn't want all that noise sitting on my desk while video editing.
In summary... I think mine was probably defective. But... I still believe that the i7s are considerably hotter and a bit louder than the i5s and for those that don't like super hot machines or noisy ones... Get the i5. The extra speed isn't really worth it if you don't want to use it because of the heat and noise.