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iMac 5k/i5/M395x - does it overheat?

F

Flow91

macrumors member
Original poster
Dec 10, 2015
33
13
Good morning,

I'm new to this forum because I want to buy a late 2015 27" iMac. While I don't want the i7 due to heat problems (I want the machine to last as long as possible), I'm not sure about the GPU yet.

Of course the M395x would be the best choice as I want to keep the machine some years, but does it also overheat or is that just a problem of the i7 CPU?

Does anyone have an i5 with the M395x and already measured the temps?

If the combination of i5 and M395x also leads to overheating problems, I would take the M395 GPU as I haven't heard yet that that model gets too hot.

Thanks for your help.
 
I recently got the i5/m395x/512gb SSD combination to help keep heat down after reading the threads on the m295x. If I push the machine (under gaming in Win 10) the gpu reaches a peak temp of 97-98 degrees c and fans then hover around 1800rpm with an ambient room temp of 20 degrees c. So whilst still a warm machine seems much improved over the previous gen which got hotter and had the fans blowing harder. So happy with the heat performance.
 
Same here with i5/m395x/512GB flash/16GB RAM, reaching 98C when playing my Trainz game in OSX. I've now installed the 10.11.2 El Capitan upgrade, and I'm happy to report that temperatures are now 10-15C lower, with the fan ramping up a little faster (staying under 1500RPM most of the time).
 
Thanks for sharing your experiences. In fact the temps still seem high to me - between 90 and 100 degrees C, I hoped that it would be better. These values propably will effect the computer's life span, don't you think so?

Maybe fancontrol can help to keep them a bit lower. I don't care about noise (my laptop is a little vacuum cleaner).

So I'll check the temps of the M395 in combination with the i5 again and think about it, again thanks for your help!
 
Maximum temperature for the i7, according to Intel is 104C.

In an iMac they tend to max out at 98/99C.

So 5 degrees under the maximum. Apple themselves state they run within Intel's parameters - and they do.

Same applies to the GPU.

Personally I don't give a toss about temperatures (and I have the i7 with the M395X). Maybe it's because I'm in the UK and if anything fails within 6 years, Apple have to repair it under the consumer laws we have.
 
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The main issue for overheating is the GPU not the CPU during gaming (it depends obviously). But for most cases the GPU will cause more heat issues. Plus is the one most prone to failures. Buying the i5 will help a bit but you will still have a hot running iMac nevertheless. I'd say you get the Apple Care and enjoy your purchase.
 
I play witcher 3 for multiple hours every night on mixed ultra settings at 1440p and only once has it even gotten warm enough for the fan to need to kick in audibly. You're not going to have gpu heating problems, these are higher end LAPTOP gpus, they're specifically made to be low power draw/low heat units at the expense of graphical power. Personally I'd happily make the trade off of more heat and to get more power but that's not an option we even get.

So in the end do not worry for a second about gpu heating. Your cpu can get warm but not to the point where it'll even need to thermally throttle. Look up the numerous youtube people testing this, unless you're specfically TRYING to max out the sytem, you're not going to even get close to 100 degrees c dude.
 
iemcj said:
I play witcher 3 for multiple hours every night on mixed ultra settings at 1440p and only once has it even gotten warm enough for the fan to need to kick in audibly. You're not going to have gpu heating problems, these are higher end LAPTOP gpus, they're specifically made to be low power draw/low heat units at the expense of graphical power. Personally I'd happily make the trade off of more heat and to get more power but that's not an option we even get.

So in the end do not worry for a second about gpu heating. Your cpu can get warm but not to the point where it'll even need to thermally throttle. Look up the numerous youtube people testing this, unless you're specfically TRYING to max out the sytem, you're not going to even get close to 100 degrees c dude.
Click to expand...
this because you use M395x and not M295x
 
Serban said:
this because you use M395x and not M295x
Click to expand...
Hey Serban, do me a HUGE favor. Can you please read to me the title of this post and let me know if he asked about the old model or the new one? You can then feel free to delete your comment or add a "woops, I'm interjecting about something completely off topic and irrelevant, I'm sorry guys." Whichever you'd prefer. ;)
 
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iemcj said:
Hey Serban, do me a HUGE favor. Can you please read to me the title of this post and let me know if he asked about the old model or the new one? You can then feel free to delete your comment or add a "woops, I'm interjecting about something completely off topic and irrelevant, I'm sorry guys." Whichever you'd prefer. ;)
Click to expand...
please feel free and look at my replay again. i said that the overheat was issue just for the last model dGPU. seems that many opt for the i5 just because of the heat and they are wrong. Since 2012 the only problem until present was the M295x and thats all. So please can you delete your comment because its has NOTHING at all to do with this discussion.
 
so feel free OP to go max out or whatever you do because the heat problems are gone
 
If this is your primary concern, the i7 is not a problem, but M395X may be.

I almost never heard any i7 was damaged by heat. Intel is making very good quality CPU now.

But there are lots of cooked AMD GPU out there.
 
While we know that higher temperatures are bad for electronics, there was a theory some time ago (back around 2008 was when I first heard of it) that the actual temperature isn't an issue, as long as it's within the operating limits. Rather, it's the temperature fluctuation that causes the most stress on electronics. If you turn off a computer and then turn it back on, there's a sudden voltage jolt and a quick rise in temperature from room temperature to low- to medium-level heat. It's a low temperature relative to the maximum operating temperature, but the change in temperature is huge, and represents a major stress on the components.

In theory, it means that you should never turn your computer off or let it go to sleep... but that's pretty wasteful in terms of electricity. I don't know that you'd gain that much additional operating time by leaving your system running, either; if the system were to sleep for hours at a time then you probably wouldn't gain anything. Someone who sleeps and wakes their system multiple times a day might have something to gain by decreasing the number of sleep/wake cycles, though.

It's a sound theory, but of course, it's also a theory. You can never really know what component will fail or why.
 
While I don't have a M395x (or the i7), I think within OS X, the calling issue is not really a problem. When I run windows, that's where I want to make sure its not getting too hot.
 
Well, that's right, but I'm afraid of trusting Apple because their guarantee is limited to one year here in Germany - with Apple Care it's three years, but as the machine is quiet expensive (and has powerful components) I want it to last some more years.

But regarding the numerous posts here (thanks a lot!) I think that the "heat problem" of the M395x is not as bad as I thougt.
 
From my experience, having spent lots of time gaming on iMacs and MacBook pros, invest in AppleCare. Compared to a gaming PC they run very hot, while those parameters might be within the GPU and CPU ranges, they are very close to the max, within the three years of AppleCare I've had most components replaced.

Since I've stopped gaming on my macs, I've not run into hardware issues.

Maybe invest in a lower spec iMac, and use the difference on a gaming PC.
 
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