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M1 Max MBP - How quiet are they REALLY?

Grilled Cheese

Grilled Cheese

macrumors member
Original poster
Aug 5, 2021
67
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By all accounts, the new MacBook Pros are very quiet laptops. However, as someone who works in a silent recording studio, my quietness requirements are higher than usual. It’s so quiet in here that when guests arrive they often say “oooh that’s weird, it’s like my eardrums are turning inside out” or something to that effect.

I’m currently using a 2013 Mac Pro. It’s a quiet machine but in my studio I can hear it from 6 feet away when idling (which is why it lives inside a custom built enclosure). I’m considering a new M1 Max MBP, but I’m concerned that they might be too noisy for my environment.

How quiet is your M1 Max MBP? If you’re working in a typical office or home environment with various background noises, this might be tough to answer. So here are some specific questions:

1. Are they any louder / quieter than 2013 Mac Pros or 2019 Mac Pros?
2. During “moderate” day to day use (i.e. not during super intensive tasks) are the fans always on (but at low RPM) or do they turn off completely?

Thank you for sharing your thoughts and experiences.
 
Mine should be coming next week and can post my results. Are you looking at getting the 14" or 16"? My work computer is ridiculous, just opening up Visual Studio causes the fans to max out and its irritating. Will be nice to have a quiet laptop around!
 
I don't have mine yet, but I would point out that if you put it in low power mode, the fans might not come on at all.

Alternatively, I imagine you should be able to install a tool to manually force the fans to 0RPM. It might run hot, and it might start thermally throttling, but it should still have plenty of power to do whatever you need it to do. Then once you're done with the need for super-quiet, switch the fans back to normal mode.
 
xWhiplash said:
Mine should be coming next week and can post my results. Are you looking at getting the 14" or 16"? My work computer is ridiculous, just opening up Visual Studio causes the fans to max out and its irritating. Will be nice to have a quiet laptop around!
Click to expand...
16” would be my choice.
 
Grilled Cheese said:
By all accounts, the new MacBook Pros are very quiet laptops. However, as someone who works in a silent recording studio, my quietness requirements are higher than usual. It’s so quiet in here that when guests arrive they often say “oooh that’s weird, it’s like my eardrums are turning inside out” or something to that effect.

I’m currently using a 2013 Mac Pro. It’s a quiet machine but in my studio I can hear it from 6 feet away when idling (which is why it lives inside a custom built enclosure). I’m considering a new M1 Max MBP, but I’m concerned that they might be too noisy for my environment.

How quiet is your M1 Max MBP? If you’re working in a typical office or home environment with various background noises, this might be tough to answer. So here are some specific questions:

1. Are they any louder / quieter than 2013 Mac Pros or 2019 Mac Pros?
2. During “moderate” day to day use (i.e. not during super intensive tasks) are the fans always on (but at low RPM) or do they turn off completely?

Thank you for sharing your thoughts and experiences.
Click to expand...

I’ve never heard the fans on my 16” M1 MBP at all. No matter what I’ve been doing. Fans *do* turn off completely, but even when they are running I have to put my ear up to the back of the machine to hear them.
 
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16" MBP M1 PRO -- I haven't heard them once. And I've been using Logic Pro for mixing, bouncing, etc. Shocked at its silence.

Also, "Low Power Mode" on this chip still seems plenty powerful for Logic Pro, although I use mostly native effects and only a few third-party plugins that are not optimized and tend to spike a core or two.
 
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The 16” M1 Max is super quiet. I doubt you will find a quieter machine than this in combination with the power it has.

Now there some machine which are theoretically even more quiet (MBA and iPad Pro) as they have no fans, but they obviously are not as powerful.
 
Obviously one option is the M1 Air, with no fans to speak of. As for the M1 Max, a fan controller could lock it to idle, or even zero.
 
Grilled Cheese said:
By all accounts, the new MacBook Pros are very quiet laptops. However, as someone who works in a silent recording studio, my quietness requirements are higher than usual. It’s so quiet in here that when guests arrive they often say “oooh that’s weird, it’s like my eardrums are turning inside out” or something to that effect.

I’m currently using a 2013 Mac Pro. It’s a quiet machine but in my studio I can hear it from 6 feet away when idling (which is why it lives inside a custom built enclosure). I’m considering a new M1 Max MBP, but I’m concerned that they might be too noisy for my environment.

How quiet is your M1 Max MBP? If you’re working in a typical office or home environment with various background noises, this might be tough to answer. So here are some specific questions:

1. Are they any louder / quieter than 2013 Mac Pros or 2019 Mac Pros?
2. During “moderate” day to day use (i.e. not during super intensive tasks) are the fans always on (but at low RPM) or do they turn off completely?

Thank you for sharing your thoughts and experiences.
Click to expand...
In your silent recording studio do you use any apps that are GPU-intensive like video editing or gaming?

Unless you need 64GB memory getting a M1 Max may be overkill for tasks that are not GPU-limited.
 
I can not comment on the Mac but the M1 Pro 16” so far has been really quiet.

Installing stuff and surfing the web the fans are off.

Cinebench or the 3d mark stress test about 1700 rpm which I can hear if I put my head on the keyboard (have to admit did not try in a totally quiet room yet only got it 2 days ago).
Similar actually when using Blender so far.

Next to the air the most quiet notebook I have ever used.
 
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I ordered a M1 Max 16 Inch Version aswell for my Studio.
I am a Producer and can share my expirience as soon as it arrives at my place on Wednesday by next week.
 
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The fans on my 14” M1 Max with 64GB RAM are usually on, running at ~2400 RPM with my workloads and external display, but completely inaudible. When idle with screen off they seem to turn off completely and I can’t distinguish any difference between that and normal speed after I’ve started using the system. If it wasn’t for TG Pro I would think the fans were always off.
 
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xk991 said:
The fans on my 14” M1 Max with 64GB RAM are usually on, running at ~2400 RPM with my workloads and external display, but completely inaudible. When idle with screen off they seem to turn off completely and I can’t distinguish any difference between that and normal speed after I’ve started using the system. If it wasn’t for TG Pro I would think the fans were always off.
Click to expand...
is that the 24-core or 32-core M1 max?
 
Adarna said:
In your silent recording studio do you use any apps that are GPU-intensive like video editing or gaming?

Unless you need 64GB memory getting a M1 Max may be overkill for tasks that are not GPU-limited.
Click to expand...
The M1 Max is just what I’ve been waiting for. I compose in Logic Pro, sometimes using a lot of ram hungry virtual instruments. I also use Final Cut Pro recreationally and editing 4K video on my 2013 Mac Pro (D300 gpu) is painful. Really looking forward to the performance of the M1 Max. (Some fan noise while I’m editing video is ok, but not when I’m recording/editing music).

I’ve always used Mac Pros for music production, but the power of the M1 Max makes future Mac Pros overkill for me. A 2022 Mac Pro with 2-4 times the power of M1 Max will be unnecessary.

Good times! It’s amazing to me that it’s now possible to run my studio off a laptop!
 
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AppleTomsk said:
I ordered a M1 Max 16 Inch Version aswell for my Studio.
I am a Producer and can share my expirience as soon as it arrives at my place on Wednesday by next week.
Click to expand...
Very interested to “hear” your results. Is your studio quiet?
 
xk991 said:
The fans on my 14” M1 Max with 64GB RAM are usually on, running at ~2400 RPM with my workloads and external display, but completely inaudible. When idle with screen off they seem to turn off completely and I can’t distinguish any difference between that and normal speed after I’ve started using the system. If it wasn’t for TG Pro I would think the fans were always off.
Click to expand...
Thank you for sharing. I’ll bet that in my studio you would be able to hear those fans at 2400 rpm. You’d be amazed what becomes audible when all other background sounds are eliminated. I can hear the large, slow fan in my 2013 Mac Pro running at around 1000 rpm from 6 feet away.
 
Fans in my 16-inch (M1 Max, 64GB, 32c) are only ever noticeable when exporting a longer timeline from FCP. I can't think of any other times I hear them.

This has mostly been in clamshell mode hooked up to my desk setup (2x 4K displays with a Thunderbolt dock).
 
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Fans turn on extremely rarely in day to day use as developer (Android mostly) on my 16" M1 Max.
I can only tell when they turned on with a brief rpm bump to help them start spinning, then they settle at ~1500 rpm which can be heard only in a very quiet environment.
This is incredibly pleasant.

One thing that wasn't reported is the lack of perceptible coil whine as well, which has been a significant issue on various laptops.

Coming from a late 2015 MacBook Pro, I enjoy this so much.
 
I have been playing shadow of the tomb raider for a couple days now and I haven't heard the fan come on once. Most everything is on high settings.

edit: Plad shadow of the tomb raider a little bit longer this time and now I can’t hear the fan but was very faint.
 
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Every time I’ve thought I heard the fans spin up it turned out I was hearing one my external hard drives spinning.
 
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OK... I have an M1Pro(16GB/512GB). I set up a sequence of videos to be run on Handbrake for about 30 minutes. This makes the cpu run at about 93% for 30 minutes. For about 10 minutes the fans never came on at all. Finally they did, but the only way I could hear them was to put my ear to the vent.

On my late 2013 the fans kicked in within about 40 seconds, and by 90 seconds it sounded like the mac was aboout to take off into the air.
 
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It is a VERY quiet laptop. haha but thats a relative statement of course. All I can say is that I work in very complex 3D spaces in Vectorworks and have had virtually no fan noise yet. It's the first laptop I've ever had that is this quiet.
 
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