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iMac Retina 5K disappointing: Heat and fan noise!

Cape Dave said:
I watched it full screen for 3 minutes or so. Here are temps: https://www.dropbox.com/s/x7720dyyedt3php/Screenshot 2014-12-25 12.52.34.png?dl=0

See sig.

As you can see, fan was still at default, so silent.

Hmm, guess I have no sig.

RiMac with i5, 512 SSD, 8GB, 295x
Click to expand...

Was that using the "Best" quality option? And in what browser? Safari may take longer than 3 minutes to reach high temps.

If you still don't get high temps, then I wonder if the i5 vs the i7 matters here. Does the i7 get much warmer than the i5 perhaps?
 
Suddenly cannot post replies.... weird

Edit: Well this one did go through. The one I just posted is being held in moderation?!?
 
Cape Dave said:
I watched it full screen for 3 minutes or so. Here are temps: (link)
See sig.

As you can see, fan was still at default, so silent.

Hmm, guess I have no sig.

RiMac with i5, 512 SSD, 8GB, 295x
Click to expand...

(Gonna try replying again)

Was that using the "Best" quality option? (720p is not he best.) And what browser was it? Safari may take more than 3 minutes to reach the high temps and fan speed.
 
yeah you are right. 720 is not "the best". I thought that 720 == "the best". Strange GUI of that Flash Player.

However, after watching the video for 2 minutes the fan start to become loud on chrome and safari. But not very loud. The sound of the video is much louder and on gaming the fan is much much much louder.

I think the problem is Flash. While HTML5 Videos uses GPU acceleration, the Flash-Player has only the CPU. That's why the Fan becomes loud.

Flash sucks ;)

Regards, a Web-Developer :D

Edit: Oh it seems that Flash supports GPU acceleration since 10.1. OK, than it seems that flash is only a **** of code. I hate flash :)
 
Last edited:
riMac i7, 32G(Apple), 290x, watch the stream in best, full screen mode for 3 minutes or so, GPU die temp 64 Celsius, Cpu Core1 53 C, fan speed 1200.
Stop the stream and after a while, CPU Core1 49C, GPU die 42C.
 
SmallDane said:
Thanks for all the replies. I tried to make a video of the problem. But I'm not sure how useful it is since you really have to be in the room to experience how loud the fan noise is.

YouTube: video

The sensors shown in he menu bar are as follows:
  1. Fan speed
  2. GPU Die
  3. CPU Core 1
  4. CPU Core 2
  5. CPU Core 3
  6. CPU Core 4

The machine is doing nothing other than showing this video stream. I should note that this is with Chrome using its own Flash plugin. Using the Flash plugin from Adobe (either by disabling the built-in one in Chrome or by using Safari) does improve performance somewhat. It is still pretty poor performance though.

I am still leaning mostly towards returning it. The only thing is that I don't know what to replace it with. I tend to want the biggest and fastest when buying new. But some of you have suggested that this may be a bad idea if I also want low noise. It just seems quite counter-intuitive getting a slower model in order to reduce noise. Wouldn't a slower GPU be pressured more and thus produce even more heat?
Click to expand...

Sounds like a jet taking off in your home.
 
Hanterdro said:
yeah you are right. 720 is not "the best". I thought that 720 == "the best". Strange GUI of that Flash Player.

However, after watching the video for 2 minutes the fan start to become loud on chrome and safari. But not very loud. The sound of the video is much louder and on gaming the fan is much much much louder.

I think the problem is Flash. While HTML5 Videos uses GPU acceleration, the Flash-Player has only the CPU. That's why the Fan becomes loud.

Flash sucks ;)

Regards, a Web-Developer :D

Edit: Oh it seems that Flash supports GPU acceleration since 10.1. OK, than it seems that flash is only a **** of code. I hate flash :)
Click to expand...

Yep flash sucks.


On my i7/295/32GB/3TB Fusion after about 3.5-4 minutes of watching that video full screen set to "best" my fan speed sped up to ~1667rpm (varies by a few). My GPU die got close to 100C. I was able to see 94C immediately after leaving full screen and checking iStat, but likely it was closer to 100C. The fan noise is hardly what I personally would call loud, especially with any sound on, but this is of course subjective.

For reference, though, I hate untoward noise issues, but the pleasant nature of the iMac at around 1600-1700rpm is really not bothersome.
 
boast said:
A low end 2013 should provide the quiter noise that youre looking for.
Click to expand...

Is this really true? I thought the high-end version ought to be able to handle equivalent work load at lower temps and lower fan noise. Am I completely wrong about that?

I am really not sure what to do then. I would like both high performance and low noise. But my priority is definitely low noise. So the question is how much lower performance (in particular in games) a low-end iMac would give me? And is the performance too low?

Really not sure what to do. But I am probably returning this iMac since the noise annoys the heck out of me. :confused:
 
baulder said:
riMac i7, 32G(Apple), 290x, watch the stream in best, full screen mode for 3 minutes or so, GPU die temp 64 Celsius, Cpu Core1 53 C, fan speed 1200.
Stop the stream and after a while, CPU Core1 49C, GPU die 42C.
Click to expand...

This is interesting. With your setup, does the fan activate often?

It seems there is a pattern, where either i5+295 or i7+290 doesn't produce enough heat to activate the fans, during normal non-stressing tasks.

Also, which HDD do you have?
 
It just dawned on me that possibly some of the noise anomalies could be caused by Apple's normally fair to middlin' execution of thermal paste application.

Poor execution of this could cause the CPU to heat up enough to kick in fans whereas other "better" applications would cool better and not rev up the fan.

Just throwing this out there. There are threads somewhere on this forum where folks go into pretty serious detail about the application of thermal paste.
 
hjalte said:
This is interesting. With your setup, does the fan activate often?

It seems there is a pattern, where either i5+295 or i7+290 doesn't produce enough heat to activate the fans, during normal non-stressing tasks.

Also, which HDD do you have?
Click to expand...

I haven't got chance to run some heavy staff, just web, ssh, X11 kind of tasks, so really can't say for sure.
HDD: 512SSD
 
Hello guys!

I've got my riMac today and of course I'm testing it now.

I should say that's temperature on gaming MAFIA II can get to 80-85 degrees on low setting, 90-100 degrees at medium and up to 105 degrees at maxed out settings.

A guy from chat support told me he is not sure how it will be with time and will some problems occur because they (probably the manufacturer) are still testing it.

Well, that's optimistic! Lol. I'm not so much of a gamer really but I would expect from this machine with upgraded GPU to be reliable, even at higher temperatures.

What do you guys think? 4K videos and the whole OS X experience is going nice and smooth, with cool temperatures.
 
Mindinversion said:
Also, just to ask again, are these temps with stock fan profiles, or are you using SMC fan control to bump up the fans?

I'd love to see an adjusted temp set with fans adjusted to, say.. 2k RPM and see if it still hits those 105c temps.
Click to expand...

I'm unsure if you're asking me because the fan is running way above 2k RPM. But just to be sure, I have not changed anything about the fan speed.
 
I'm not sure that page is correct -- it lists the M295X TDP as 250 watts, which is incorrect. They probably got it mixed up with the desktop R9 M295X2, which has dual liquid cooled GPUs at 250 watts each.
Click to expand...

With all due respect, I'd feel a lot better about your statement if you had some credible sources to go with it. Simply saying "hey buddy, your source is WRONG, because I say so" is not verified proof.

Now in the course of my research I've dug up the thread enclosing this argument, and while people are CLAIMING certain readings with a Kill-o-Watt meter, the only way to truly TEST this is to bootcamp Windows, download Prime95 and 3dmark, run them both simultaneously and actually SEE what the max draw is ....

The problem with that, of course, is that whoever attempts it stands a good chance of melting their shiny new RiMac if the cooling solution truly isn't up to par...
 
Mindinversion said:
With all due respect, I'd feel a lot better about your statement if you had some credible sources to go with it. Simply saying "hey buddy, your source is WRONG, because I say so" is not verified proof....
Click to expand...

The GPUBoss.com page said the retina iMac's M295X CPU had a TDP of 250 watts. That is absolutely impossible -- you don't need any kind of "verified proof".

Pretty much anyone who has ever built a PC can corroborate this. It is impossible to have a 250 watt CPU or GPU in laptop or similar compact air-cooled case. Apple's own specs show the max power dissipation of the entire retina iMac -- CPU, GPU, disk, memory, power supply -- is only 288 watts: http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201918

For the GPUBoss number of 250 watts for the M295X to be plausible, the entire iMac minus the GPU would have to run on 38 watts. That is impossible, and you can be 100% confident of that without measuring it.

This is the size of air cooler required for a chip with 250 watts TDP: http://content.hwigroup.net/images/news/Cooler_Master_V8_GTS_01.jpg
 
OlexandrIgnatov said:
Hello guys!

I've got my riMac today and of course I'm testing it now.

I should say that's temperature on gaming MAFIA II can get to 80-85 degrees on low setting, 90-100 degrees at medium and up to 105 degrees at maxed out settings.

A guy from chat support told me he is not sure how it will be with time and will some problems occur because they (probably the manufacturer) are still testing it.

Well, that's optimistic! Lol. I'm not so much of a gamer really but I would expect from this machine with upgraded GPU to be reliable, even at higher temperatures.

What do you guys think? 4K videos and the whole OS X experience is going nice and smooth, with cool temperatures.
Click to expand...

What's your setup?
 
joema2 said:
The GPUBoss.com page said the retina iMac's M295X CPU had a TDP of 250 watts. That is absolutely impossible -- you don't need any kind of "verified proof".

Pretty much anyone who has ever built a PC can corroborate this. It is impossible to have a 250 watt CPU or GPU in laptop or similar compact air-cooled case. Apple's own specs show the max power dissipation of the entire retina iMac -- CPU, GPU, disk, memory, power supply -- is only 288 watts: http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201918

For the GPUBoss number of 250 watts for the M295X to be plausible, the entire iMac minus the GPU would have to run on 38 watts. That is impossible, and you can be 100% confident of that without measuring it.

This is the size of air cooler required for a chip with 250 watts TDP: http://content.hwigroup.net/images/news/Cooler_Master_V8_GTS_01.jpg
Click to expand...

I knew GPUboss is very Nvidia-biased, just not this much! :eek:
 
Mindinversion said:
With all due respect, I'd feel a lot better about your statement if you had some credible sources to go with it. Simply saying "hey buddy, your source is WRONG, because I say so" is not verified proof.
Click to expand...
Ah, so if he puts his post on pastebin.com and than reply to your post with a link to that pastebin content he'll end up with verified proof. After all, you simply posted a link to a website and you seem to be considering that as verified proof...

Don't accuse someone of doing something you are doing yourself.

The only thing you have to do is your homework. In this case that means visiting the manufacturers and/or other review websites to check out the specs. Or in other words, we are not here to hold your hand and do all of your work. Get up from that lazy ass and do some research yourself. Somebody just gave you a big hint the website might be wrong. How about you dive into that? If you did all you could have done is post (yet another) link to the specs from the manufacturer showing the guy is wrong.

I did search around and what I'm seeing is NOT in line with the website you've linked to. Other than that, how logical is it to have a GPU with a TDP of 250W or 100W in a mobile device (read: notebook) especially considering that you usually get an 85W and sometimes even a 120W power adapter? Do we really need to have verified proof and links to everything? HELL NO! Just think for once.
 
The only thing you have to do is your homework. In this case that means visiting the manufacturers and/or other review websites to check out the specs. Or in other words, we are not here to hold your hand and do all of your work. Get up from that lazy ass and do some research yourself. Somebody just gave you a big hint the website might be wrong. How about you dive into that? If you did all you could have done is post (yet another) link to the specs from the manufacturer showing the guy is wrong.
Click to expand...

Here ya go, computer illiterate Mac man ^^ Here's the manufacturer's specifications for the M200x series of cards:

http://www.amd.com/en-us/products/graphics/notebook/r9-m200

Notice what two critical pieces of information are missing? *I* Sure did, which is why I didn't bother to initially post it.

Without any credible sources, however, all you're spouting is sincerely undereducated OPINIONS based on what you THINK you know. My link is wrong based on . . what evidence, exactly? Your OPINION? Remind me not to post questions asking for medical advice.

But you did push me into digging up this:

http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201918

which shows load wattage on the i5 290 @ 176, and the i7 295 @ 288. Apple makes it a PITA to track down CPU part numbers, but a quick check on intel's site shows i5 and i7 with non-turbo clock values both having being rated at 84w.

So next time maybe you should take your own advice and "Get up from that lazy ass and do some research yourself"
 
I finally gotten around to trying to view the stream at Best then recording my findings.

Fullscreen-27-12-14,-20-34.png


While the fans didn't get up to your speed, yes it was unreasonable that just watching a video stream can generate so much activity but that is because of Flash. Taking up 200% CPU activity simply generate a lot of heat requiring the fans to pump the heat out.

Or maybe Nvidia hates us hehe :D
 
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