iMac Retina 5K disappointing: Heat and fan noise!

[samcow]

I can't run the full benchmark now as using the machine for lots of other stuff. but posting a few screenshots at Ultra quality. GPU temps and FPS can be seen in top right corner.

Thanks, no rush take your time. I dont personally game, but I do find UI lag to be annoying, and use lightroom a fair amount along with Photoshop. Just looking for any empirical analyses of the 395x card

 

[nottoohigh]

Thanks, no rush take your time. I dont personally game, but I do find UI lag to be annoying, and use lightroom a fair amount along with Photoshop. Just looking for any empirical analyses of the 395x card

OK had a window of time available and here are the Unigine benchmarks at medium, high and ultra:

MEDIUM

HIGH

ULTRA

FWIW: there was no change at all in fan speed (steady at 1200rpm) during all 3 benchmark runs, even though GPU temp did go up to 98 degrees at the highest.

 

[steve62388]

OK had a window of time available and here are the Unigine benchmarks at medium, high and ultra:

MEDIUM

HIGH

ULTRA

FWIW: there was no change at all in fan speed (steady at 1200rpm) during all 3 benchmark runs, even though GPU temp did go up to 98 degrees at the highest.

I know you're not a benchmark guy (you said so in an earlier post) but they're most useful when you use presets, otherwise you could have tweaked settings and nobody would be none the wiser.

 

[cynics]

OK had a window of time available and here are the Unigine benchmarks at medium, high and ultra:

MEDIUM

HIGH

ULTRA

FWIW: there was no change at all in fan speed (steady at 1200rpm) during all 3 benchmark runs, even though GPU temp did go up to 98 degrees at the highest.

If you get a chance would you mind doing the extreme hd preset?

I'm suddenly more interested in a new iMac.

 

[samcow]

If you get a chance would you mind doing the extreme hd preset?

I'm suddenly more interested in a new iMac.

Yea I think putting on 8xAA and tessellation at extreme would make it easier to compare with other benchmarks. Resolution can be kept at that, or 1080p

 

[cynics]

Yea I think putting on 8xAA and tessellation at extreme would make it easier to compare with other benchmarks. Resolution can be kept at that, or 1080p

Yeah. That is only moderately better then my 775m in FPS but with lower min and duration results in a lower score.



Edit : Oops not Heaven

 

[samcow]

Yeah. That is only moderately better then my 775m in FPS but with lower min and duration results in a lower score.

View attachment 594306

The score you posted is not from Heaven

 

[cynics]

The score you posted is not from Heaven

Lol I just realized that and was rushing back here to edit that. Gonna run Heaven now...

 

[cynics]

The score you posted is not from Heaven

Hmm....2013 iMac 775m..

Maybe I'll hold off on that new iMac after all lol.



Wish I would have got the 780 when I had the chance.

 

[jerwin]

Ultra quality? Looks like you've turned tesselation off.

 

[nottoohigh]

I know you're not a benchmark guy (you said so in an earlier post) but they're most useful when you use presets, otherwise you could have tweaked settings and nobody would be none the wiser.

sorry folks, i have no vested interest at all in promoting this new mac. I love mine and am happy with it. as of now, have decided it is a keeper. I wont be running any more benchmarks as it really doesn't matter to me, as the experience of just using the machine is what I was after, and the experience has exceeded my expectations.

Hope that helps!

 

[samcow]

Hmm....2013 iMac 775m..

Maybe I'll hold off on that new iMac after all lol.

View attachment 594308

Wish I would have got the 780 when I had the chance.

Ah interesting, I think I'm holding off this generation.

 

[SBruv]

Could this be at least partly down to poor OS X drivers for the 395x compared to the 775M?

Any chance of everyone running their comparative benchmarks in Windows under Boot Camp? That might be a more level playing field.

 

[aevan]

Hmm....2013 iMac 775m..

Maybe I'll hold off on that new iMac after all lol.

View attachment 594308

Wish I would have got the 780 when I had the chance.

It wouldn't have that beautiful screen, which is what it's all about. I'd take any Retina iMac, even the one with the lowest GPU over a maxed-out non-retina iMac. I mean, do benchmarks really meant that much? Just look at that screen and the productivity boost it brings (for me as an illustrator, at least). Sigh.

 

[dark_skies]

Seems pretty simple. If you want faster speed and don't need the 5k, get a refurb with the old display panel. If you want the 5k, the newest model May be faster than the original 5k ... still looking for apples to apples comparison.

 

[SBruv]

Okay, not sure if this helps or not, but here are the Heaven results from my late 2012 3.4GHz i7 with GTX 680MX. The first one's in OS X 10.11, the second one's in Windows 10. OS X's graphics drivers are so ropey that I reckon these tests need to be done in Windows, ideally.

 

[SBruv]

Having said that, here's Heaven in Windows 10, using OpenGL. :-/

 

[nottoohigh]

It wouldn't have that beautiful screen, which is what it's all about. I'd take any Retina iMac, even the one with the lowest GPU over a maxed-out non-retina iMac. I mean, do benchmarks really meant that much? Just look at that screen and the productivity boost it brings (for me as an illustrator, at least). Sigh.

Exactly my thoughts. I just fired up my 2011 iMac to retrieve some file after 2 full days on the new retina 5k and the difference is stark. I wouldn't go back to non-retina ever again if I had the choice. it's all about the screen for me ... and absence of fan noise/excessive heat, which is why I wanted to run Unigine to push the GPU and see if the fan would kick up (it didn't, no noise at all).

 

[cynics]

It wouldn't have that beautiful screen, which is what it's all about. I'd take any Retina iMac, even the one with the lowest GPU over a maxed-out non-retina iMac. I mean, do benchmarks really meant that much? Just look at that screen and the productivity boost it brings (for me as an illustrator, at least). Sigh.

I feel like you're implying you actually have an option.

They removed any non retinas iMacs with better graphic performance at 1440p last year and completely removed the non retina iMac this year. Your only choice on which one to take is 5k or 5k. Virtually nothing available in the refurb store.

Which is why I said I wish I would have got the 780m when I had the chance.

We have professional workstations at work. My iMac is just a toy I use at home for basic stuff, occasional gaming, iTunes server, video encoding. So I value all the speed I can get over screen resolutions I'd realistically use.

 

[Cliffy Biro]

Thanks @nottoohigh sounds like we'll have similar usage. I won't be gaming on this at all, just professional print design work and occasional video edits but nothing serious. Glad to hear the noise and heat isn't a concern, I'm looking for quiet in an iMac and am already happy the specs in the i7 + 395X + 24gb will run Adobe CC well. It's been hard to guage the performance for my use case so far and my local Apple Store only has a low and mid range on display.

Appreciate you taking the time to reply!

I too was concerned about this after reading all the threads re the late-2014 i7 noise issues. But pulled the trigger last week and ordered the new i7 + M395X + 1TB SSD + 8GB RAM (to be upgraded if I decide to keep this machine). it arrived yesterday.

Haven't put it through too much as of yet but in regular usage for me, which is software development (web and mobile apps), I am extremely happy with this purchase.

Point of reference, I am coming from a late-2011 27-inch imac i7 + AMD6970 2GB + 16GB Ram + 256GB OWC SSD + 1TB HDD (factory installed).

In regular usage the new retina iMac is noticeably quieter than my late-2011 iMac, which in itself was already pretty quiet (I had no complaints about it and I am fairly particular about noisy fans and such). It also runs much cooler to the touch (the case of the late-2011 would get HOT even under normal use, although the fans didn't spin up extra, it's just designed that way I guess). the new retina iMac still feels cool to the touch even after running for several hours, again regular usage.

regular usage for me being usually 3 browsers open with average 10 tabs per browser, photoshop open and generally some image or other loaded in (screenshot, mockup etc), software IDE running and/or Xcode, office suite running (maybe word, excel, depending on need), mail running, skype, itunes playing somthing or other. So no video encoding or "heavy" photoshop or lightroom work going on most of the time.

using SMC fan control, the main temp (it doesn't seem to break out component temps on this new machine) hovers around 43 degrees and fan is always around 1200rpm, which at that speed is nearly inaudible to me when sitting in front of the machine using it. I have to go around the back and put my ear close to the vent to hear the fan.

By comparison, my late-2011 27-inch iMac would have fan speed around 1000-1,1100 for same sort of usage but the fan was noticeably MORE audible than the new retina iMacs, even though the new iMac is running at a higher fan speed. Maybe it has to do with an older fan versus a newer fan?

I'm not a big benchmark person, so can't help too much there, but I did run Unigine Heaven on the new machine and at any quality setting (medium, high or ultra), the fan speed remained the same at 1,200rpm, although GPU temp reported by Unigine did go up as high as 98 degrees, but still no audible fan noise (I turned speakers off so I could listen out for that).

Also did run a 1.5GB MP4 convert to MKV handbrake encode job on both the late-2011 and the new retina iMac. in both cases, the fans did spin up quite a bit after a short while, going as high as 2,600rpm on the late-2011 and 2,700rpm on the new iMac. Fan definitely audible at those speeds. The new retina iMac, while the fans did go faster than the late-2011, it completed the job almost 5 minutes faster. It also cooled down much quicker with the fan speed dropping back to 1200 in under 1 minute once the job was done.

The screen is of course, gorgeous, and the main reason why I bought this new machine as I am staring at the screen pretty much all day at lots of text, so crisp, sharp text definition is so much easier on my eyes. I also opted for the new magic trackpad 2 (didn't like the original trackpad, never got used to it) just to try it out, see if would like it. So far, definitely prefer it to the old one, but not sure yet if i wont go back to my trusty logitech laser mouse).

so far, I am very happy with this purchase and have no regrets, but in fairness, it's only been 1 full day of usage and now around another half day of usage.

hope this rather unscientific but layman's experience helps!

 

[Alesc]

Hmm....2013 iMac 775m..

Maybe I'll hold off on that new iMac after all lol.

View attachment 594308

Wish I would have got the 780 when I had the chance.

Late 2013 with 780M and i7, less than you!!

 

[steve62388]

It's pointless posting custom benchmarks, who knows what settings were used? If you want a 'mine is bigger than yours contest' then select a preset.

 

[Alesc]

It's pointless posting custom benchmarks, who knows what settings were used? If you want a 'mine is bigger than yours contest' then select a preset.

Try the bench: in the free versioin, all you can configure is the resolution and the quality
I've set all by default (anti-aliasing and tesselation off), I've just set the quality to "Ultra".

 

[fathergll]

Whats the Heaven benchmark for the GeForce GTX 780M ?

 

[teamd]

Its an old thread but here is a twist. I self upgraded my rImac 5k to I7 and an SSD and changed the thermal paste that came with it with an Arctic thermal pad and it just sucks. MY mac restarts and the GPU often gets to 95 degrees C just by using some sort of flash based website or google maps. The fans go mental, staying in the 2800 range until it restarts.

Before the upgrade, the same machine with the I5 barely had the vent over 1800 rpm. It was dead silent and working fine.

The CPU gets much hotter which gets the GPU hotter and the cooler can barely keep up, add to that the crappy Arctic thermal pad and you get artifacts and restarts. I am going to use copper shims and AS5 in the next few days and I will get back with the results. My machine is unusable atm.