Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Imac 5k temperature (non gaming)
- Thread starter evilgawd
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
i5 / 970X / 32GB / SSD - room temperature is 20°C
- Wake up after sleep after 2 minutes:
CPU Die 29°C; GPU Die 29°C
- A couple of minutes of mail, web browsing (opening 30 tabs in one go gives a peak of):
CPU Die 32°-40°C; GPU Die 32°C
- After watching 5 minute 4k movie on YouTube 2 times https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Scxs7L0vhZ4 :
CPU Die 41°C - 48°C; GPU Die 47°C
- After 5 minutes doing mail and web, and creating this poisting, it goes back to:
CPU Die 31°C - 34°C; GPU Die 34°C
Typical temperatures I see are -5°C to +10°C around body temperature (37°C for our American friends
). In summer I expect 7°C on top, as the room can heat up to 27°C here. The fan always stays at 1200 rpm, and is barely audible on a silent Sunday morning (and way more silent than my Mac Pro 2008). There is typically a 15°C to 20°C difference between the i5/i7 - 950/970. This is in line with the postings on gaming benchmarks (e.g. https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/20344696/ and https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1815085/ and https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/20541858/). This for me was the reason to stay with the i5/970 instead of the i7/975; durability, and I don't like the fans to go up for compute intensive tasks that I don't use that often. I'm not a gamer.
I took a SSD drive to make the iMac as silent as possible. I do a lot of Lightroom with many pictures, which is a memory beast, so with 16GB in my Mac Pro I still saw it using its swap often, so I went for 32GB (Hynix). The latter is a bit of a luxury, but I wanted to be sure all my memory has the same timing, so the overall memory bus speed is guaranteed.
PS: The warmest part in the design is always the Platform Controller Hub (PCH die) controlling the display and other peripherals, which is typically 47-48°C in all above use cases, and I have seen peaking up to 56°C in past samples.
Last edited:
Very interesting.
lukketto is that with a 290 or 295 ?
I fear the 290 may not be future proof , even if i dont do any gaming or intensive video editing. While the 295 sounds like its an overheating beast.
Wife fried the 2007 imac , so if i want to shift her my mid 2011 imac and get a new one , now is the time
Decision Decision :|
lukketto is that with a 290 or 295 ?
I fear the 290 may not be future proof , even if i dont do any gaming or intensive video editing. While the 295 sounds like its an overheating beast.
Wife fried the 2007 imac , so if i want to shift her my mid 2011 imac and get a new one , now is the time
Decision Decision :|
It is not an overheating beast. It is a powerful GPU that gets hot when under heavy load, as one should expect. I recommend getting it unless you are super sensitive to (in my opinion) perfectly reasonable amounts of fan noise that goes away within a few seconds of ending the heavy task.
I have only ever heard my fan when gaming. Multiple streams side by side (27'' is awesome), twitch, 4k videos, CPU heavy task... none of these led to high temperatures.
Why would it not be future proof?
- Difference 290 vs 295 looks like 20 to 30% in performance. Can't be make-or-break:
http://barefeats.com/imac5k6.html
- The 295X starts to clock throttle when reaching the 105°C:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1815601/
https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/20697075/
- I have no problems in practice:
- No issues with pdf scaling
https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/20835244/
- No big issues with Lightroom or Photoshop
https://forums.adobe.com/message/7246422#7246422
- Mission Control a bit stuttering the very first time, but after that very fluent. Looks more like a database buildup problem than a graphic card issue.
- My Mac looks very fluent and responsive.
How is the temperature affected by heavy CPU usage but normal GPU usage? I mean loading DAW and plenty of VSTs?
Neither is correct, really. 290 is future proof and 295 is not overheating. Choose according to your needs and price-range.
At this point ; 235$ more aint making a huge diff IMHO. It seems there are more reports of lag in "general usage" with the 290, which is a big reason im leaning toward the 295 and saying it *may* not be future proof.
Again im not video editing, i want the best picture quality as i spend 60hr+ looking at it every week and snappiness is very important to me.
If you have a 290 and think im wrong, please correct me!! If you want to shed more info please do, im sure im not alone wanting more positive reports
At this point ; 235$ more aint making a huge diff IMHO. It seems there are more reports of lag in "general usage" with the 290, which is a big reason im leaning toward the 295 and saying it *may* not be future proof.
Again im not video editing, i want the best picture quality as i spend 60hr+ looking at it every week and snappiness is very important to me.
If you have a 290 and think im wrong, please correct me!! If you want to shed more info please do, im sure im not alone wanting more positive reports
There is some situation specific UI lag with 290, true - Mission Control with several windows open (Photoshop + several Safari tabs and Evernote will do the trick) and Preview animation (the window zoom) is choppy with all images larger than 5K. Neither of these two are deal-breakers for me, and they almost seem like software issues more than anything else (even some 295 owners complained on the Mission Control performance). All other UI stuff works really good (switching desktops, resizing windows, scrolling OS stuff, etc.)
For all this other UI stuff, the base iMac beats my MacBook Retina 15 (top of the line, 2013 model) and I don't hear anyone complaining there. I'm really satisfied with performance. As I mentioned several times on these forums, I have the base model and run Photoshop with large files and Zbrush, both run great, comparable to my work PC that has similar hardware, but 4x less pixels to push. I'd say the iMac is really good performance wise (and every other way). Personally, if $235 difference is not much for you, go for 295 - even if UI lag is fixed for 290, you do get a faster card. I wouldn't worry much about it overheating. Then again, I do believe 290 will serve you for years to come, but - as I said - if the price difference is not too great for you, just get the faster card and don't think about it.
One thing to note, though - my MBP starts to run quite loud minutes after using Zbrush. And Zbrush is quite a demanding program. My iMac is completely silent no matter what I do and it makes working long sessions in Zbrush a joy. In fact, the only time I heard the fans - and I do mean literally the only time - is while playing games in Bootcamp (btw, 290 performance in games at 1440p: awesome). i7 and 295 models seem to run fans more often, but I don't know that from first hand experience. Bottom line, the base model is REALLY quiet. If this matters to you more than performance, get the 290.
Also - and I know people stopped believing this will happen - but Ryan from Anandtech just tweeted that we can (finally) expect the iMac 5K review. He also confirmed to me that they have the M290X model. So, since their reviews are in-depth like no other - if you're still undecided, just wait for that and see what they have to say
I hope this helps. Either way, I recommend the 5K iMac in all configurations. Don't worry about heat
Personally, I couldn't be happier with my base model iMac. It really is great.
Last edited:
All other UI stuff works really good (switching desktops, resizing windows, scrolling OS stuff, etc.)
>> Good to hear the rest of UI is smooth
Personally, if $235 difference is not much for you, go for 295 - even if UI lag is fixed for 290, you do get a faster card. I wouldn't worry much about it overheating. Then again, I do believe 290 will serve you for years to come, but - as I said - if the price difference is not too great for you, just get the faster card and don't think about it.
>> ill put the extra $$ if i need it. Do i need the GPU power ? No
This whole "290x is an old card" + lag is messing with me. Ive always upgraded CPU and never the GPU . But my fear now is that in 2-3 years it may not have enough kick to drive the latest osx smoothly ...
Now quietness is something I value , some extra food for thought
Also - and I know people stopped believing this will happen - but Ryan from Anandtech just tweeted that we can (finally) expect the iMac 5K review. He also confirmed to me that they have the M290X model. So, since their reviews are in-depth like no other - if you're still undecided, just wait for that and see what they have to say
>> Very good to hear
Thanks alot for your input aevan!
People's definition of overheating seem to misalign. But the fan noise of an M295X 5K iMac is louder more frequently than any previous iMac since 2009 - this is fact, not subjective.
The M295X does not 'overheat' but, inside the 5K iMac, it throttles itself to avoid overheating. At the point that it starts to throttle (from tests on these forums, about ~60-90 seconds of being under load) it deems itself to be reaching unsafe temperatures. You could say the M295X is too hot, but it does not overheat. There's a difference. You can manage too hot by lowering clock speed, an overheating card would result in an instant shut down of the iMac.
The same goes for the i7, by the way. It'll throttle itself within a few seconds under load – by about 15%, if I remember correctly. Again, too hot, but not overheating. Those with the i7/M295X combination spend the most time with throttled performance. Of course, it will still outperform any i5/M290X builds.
For what it's worth, a two minute 1080p/60FPS video (from an iPhone 6) in Quick Look took my M295X to around 95-98°C - the temperature at which the fan kicks in. That was on 10.10.1, though.
See this is were I find things derails. Up to ~75c could be considered normal. Reaching 98c is nuts to play a 2mins video. This really make me wonder how long a card(and everything around) can sustend such high temperatures .
With my luck ? 3 weeks after applecare ends
See this is were I find things derails. Up to ~75c could be considered normal. Reaching 98c is nuts to play a 2mins video. This really make me wonder how long a card(and everything around) can sustend such high temperatures .
With my luck ? 3 weeks after applecare ends
Most chips should survive >100°C temperatures; e.g. typically automotive spec ranges for ICs are between -40°C and +125°C ambient (which means junction/die is even higher).
What is more concerning to me is the instantaneous heating, which causes short term temperature fluctuations, and thermal stress to all surrounding components, packages, wire bonds and PCB connections. This is where I expect most wear will come from.
If you go for lifetime, the i5/970 is the most wise choice, and for most cases will give you and abundance of performance and a silent machine.
For those who state that they hardly see the temperature raise on their i7/295, hardly use its performance, so in that case an i5/970 would probably have done as well, and for very rare cases you have like a 20/30% performance penalty. If you need the last drip of performance for your use cases (games, heavy Photoshop filters) and don't mind fan sound so now and then, go for the i7/295, but my expectation is that it will have a shorter lifetime than the i5/970.
See this is were I find things derails. Up to ~75c could be considered normal. Reaching 98c is nuts to play a 2mins video. This really make me wonder how long a card(and everything around) can sustend such high temperatures .
With my luck ? 3 weeks after applecare ends
It's not really the temperature that's the issue. 100°C might be ok, but going from 50°C to 105°C in about 30 seconds is not ideal.
Although this is about the i7 4790K (the i7 upgrade option for the 5K iMac), it's a similar situation with the M295X inside the same machine (linked you to a good starting point):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgTMxB-ffjM&t=136
Basically, when you buy the i7/M295X iMac, you get the power of it for about 30 seconds. Then the CPU, GPU, or both (depending on the task) will begin to thermal throttle - reducing the maximum performance by up to 25-30% (15% for CPU and I've seen 11% on GPU).
That doesn't count, your in Serbia!
Lol, why? Because Youtube generates less heat here?
