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darthgamer64

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 21, 2015
2
1
So I'm looking to upgrade from a 2008 black macbook. For those who have the 5K iMac. Assuming I'm not concerned with the fan noise and GPU heat as I will just use steam in home streaming for games. Using the 4.0 GHz i7 and using a fan control application to drive up the fans to 100% and some CPU benchmarking to stress test the CPU, would you still encounter thermal throttling on the CPU? and by how much? It could also be done on a 3.5 GHz i7 but I'd prefer to see results with the more expensive one.

Also any chance that someone knows the maximum decibels of the noise that the fan would make?
 

yjchua95

macrumors 604
Apr 23, 2011
6,725
233
GVA, KUL, MEL (current), ZQN
So I'm looking to upgrade from a 2008 black macbook. For those who have the 5K iMac. Assuming I'm not concerned with the fan noise and GPU heat as I will just use steam in home streaming for games. Using the 4.0 GHz i7 and using a fan control application to drive up the fans to 100% and some CPU benchmarking to stress test the CPU, would you still encounter thermal throttling on the CPU? and by how much? It could also be done on a 3.5 GHz i7 but I'd prefer to see results with the more expensive one.

Also any chance that someone knows the maximum decibels of the noise that the fan would make?

I ran the Macoh stress tests on my i7/32/512/M295X retina iMac and found throttling to be very minimal. In all cases, the clock speed was consistently above 4 GHz and averaging around 4.1-4.2.
 

KiXeR

macrumors member
Aug 19, 2014
51
9
127.0.0.1
CPU throttling shoud be a concern http://youtu.be/tgTMxB-ffjM?t=2m56s . 5-15% performance loss is way to much. A fan @ 2300 rpm or more is loud.


So I'm looking to upgrade from a 2008 black macbook. For those who have the 5K iMac. Assuming I'm not concerned with the fan noise and GPU heat as I will just use steam in home streaming for games. Using the 4.0 GHz i7 and using a fan control application to drive up the fans to 100% and some CPU benchmarking to stress test the CPU, would you still encounter thermal throttling on the CPU? and by how much? It could also be done on a 3.5 GHz i7 but I'd prefer to see results with the more expensive one.

Also any chance that someone knows the maximum decibels of the noise that the fan would make?
 

KiXeR

macrumors member
Aug 19, 2014
51
9
127.0.0.1
Unfortionatly NO, i5 with m290x is the safest choice for 5K iMac. I didn't pull the trigger with 5K iMac because of the heat produced by GPU and CPU (i7 & m295x). I´ll wait for refresh later this year.

So it's not just the M295X that thermal throttles then. Interesting.

There's got to be a new iMac design this year, surely.
 
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