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Mac mini vs MBP fan noise? i5 vs i7 for gaming? eGPU for silence/Thermals?

C

CookieFlow

macrumors member
Original poster
Mar 4, 2015
52
31
Hello,

So I moving and thus sold my gaming rig.
I will not purchase another gaming PC as I don't game that much and much prefer macOS.

I always had Macbooks connected to external monitors (latest one was a late 2016 15" MBP), but always hated how just watching some HD videos on Youtube or Twitch and having a few chrome tabs opened made my Macbooks sound like jet engines.
I am a silence freak and hated using my Macbooks for this reason, hence why I built my gaming PC.


-Will a current gen mac Mini do better in this regards compared to a 2020 13" MBP?

-I am curious if connecting an eGPU would help in this regards? (lowering the thermals and thus fan speed)

-While I don't game that much, I will eventually want to connect an eGPU and have bootcamp for the occasional game.
The i7 upgrade is 300$ in my country, which is quite a lot for me atm.

I am not really sure how the mac Mini version compares to the traditional 8th gen i5 and i7 for PC's? Those seem to favor the i7 in gaming quite a bit but that may be due to overclocking etc.

What kind of performance increase can I expect from the i7 upgrade in gaming? (I do use a high refresh rate monitor, so getting over 60 fps is a big deal for me). Then I just do some light photo editing in Lightroom and Luminar, and basic office / Chrome, Visual code studio, which I don't think would make any difference between the 2 CPU's.


Thanks !
 
I’ve been running on a 2012 i5 for 6 years now. Thinking about buying an i5 2018 rather than an i7.

Two reasons:

1) The ARM transition is near and it probably wouldn’t make sense for me to pay for the i7 upgrade so the Mini would comfortably last maybe 6-7 years instead of 4-5 years on the i5.

2) I’m concerned the Intel security vulnerabilities might keep coming and the full hyper threading advantage of the i7 might be patched out in future microcode security updates.
 
Those are some valid concerns.
But I don't see the arm mini coming before 2021/2022 at least. And I need bootcamp so I am not sure arm Mac will support that.
 
As a fellow silence freak, I can tell you that once you get an eGPU you will have to replace the PSU and fan inside the eGPU itself to get it to have a good sound profile, particularly at idle. That's on top of making sure the graphics card you put inside it has a zero-RPM mode.

Really there is hassle and expense round every corner, if you are afflicted with silence-freakiness.
 
Last edited:
Thanks for the tips. I will pay attention to that, since I guess you don't have access to GPU fancurves inside macOS.

Did you notice some lower temps on the mac mini by using an eGPU?
 
Having a egpu definitely is quieter than using the MacBook Pro [especially with a monitor] however as others have said you will still hear fan noise from the egpu. Mine is quite loud tbh - Razer Core and AMD W5700.
The only solution I have ever owned that was close to the silence I too like, was with the iMac Pro. Hopefully the new iMacs will have cooling based on that, as it was a great machine to work on.
 
CookieFlow said:
Did you notice some lower temps on the mac mini by using an eGPU?
Click to expand...
Have barely ever used it without the eGPU so couldn't say. I've noticed the Mini's CPU temp as low as ~32C at low loads which seemed nice.

The Mini itself contains an extremely nice quality blower fan, which you'll notice if you ever take it apart to install RAM. At low-to-medium CPU loads I would say this generation of Mini is a great computer in terms of silence. At high multi-threaded CPU loads there's definitely major audible whooshing.
 
@HeavyMantra I know I will need an eGPU for games. My question was if the i7 had some benefits in gaming vs the i5. (using an eGPU ofc)

@richinaus Thanks for the input. That is fine with me, I don't mind eGPU noise under load. My Macbooks had loud fan noise just watching Twitch with external monitors. If the mini can be quiet during basic tasks I would be 100% happy with that.

Do you have the razor core base model or Chroma? I'm curious if you can change the RGB colors with macOS?

@frou That is good to know and definitely some nice temps, thanks ! I saw some people say they got up to -20c just changing the thermal paste, so I will probably do that when upgrading the ram.

Thanks for your input.

Now I just need to figure out if the i7 upgrade will be noticeable or not 🤔
 
I have a 2018 i7 MacMini. And a Razor Core X with a Sapphire Pulse RX 580. And two OWC drive enclosures. I use a variety of photography apps. Stream music (Apple Music or SiriusXM) all day while I work from home, run Folding At Home in the background, and have other apps running, including at times Parallels, which runs hot.

I never hear the fans.

It is 80 degrees F in my home office right now. The only fan I hear is the ceiling fan.

And yes the fans work in all the devices work. :)
 
MevetS said:
I have a 2018 i7 MacMini. And a Razor Core X with a Sapphire Pulse RX 580. And two OWC drive enclosures. I use a variety of photography apps. Stream music (Apple Music or SiriusXM) all day while I work from home, run Folding At Home in the background, and have other apps running, including at times Parallels, which runs hot.

I never hear the fans.

It is 80 degrees F in my home office right now. The only fan I hear is the ceiling fan.

And yes the fans work in all the devices work. :)
Click to expand...


That is awesome.

The thermal solution of the mini doesn't seem that great at first, but apparently it is still miles ahead of the thermal solution in Macbooks.

Do you have the Razer core Chroma? If so how do you control the RGB's ?
 
majordude said:
What about games like Civilization 5/6 or Sims? Those are games but not Blizzard games.
Click to expand...

My mini mostly falls apart from any 3D game, and that's because the low FPS makes them unplayable. I play a lot of slower/2D games just fine, and I'd guess that games like Civilization could work but not optimally.
 
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