Same thing here. I'm a very happy Mac mini M1 audio user willing to upgrade to a M2 Pro 12c in order to better handle complex Ableton projects. Waiting for further experiences with Mac mini M2 Pro fan noise before upgrading. Fan noise is key for me, and it was the reason why I didn't buy the Mac Studio.
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So how silent is the M2 Pro Mac Mini?
- Thread starter Freida
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I'm in a similar boat although on a Mid 2015 15" MacBookPro that I need to retire rather than having an M1. I was tempted by the studio but all the stuff heard about coil whine put me off as my mic would pick it up (and I am not in a position to be able to have a machine operating in another room).
My only concern about noise is while recording voice (on either Reaper or LogicPro) so am hoping the M2Pro is silent for that. If the fans make noise while I'm editing on FCP I don't mind.
My Mac mini M2 Pro arrived this morning. it's been copying and uploading files while I'm playing around with it, and so far it's dead silent. Even with my ear against it there's no noice at all...
The coming days I'm going to export some Final Cut Pro projects via Compressor. The movies are all around 40 minutes long so that should warm up the internals.
The coming days I'm going to export some Final Cut Pro projects via Compressor. The movies are all around 40 minutes long so that should warm up the internals.
Sorry to hear that. I think that he lives in an urban environment - near where I once lived. I can easily imagine there being enough background noise there to swamp lower-level fan noise. It's hard to judge without knowing the noise floor where he was making measurements. I didn't see that in his review.
I now live in a rural environment dozens of miles from the nearest city. I like the quiet here and so I was really hoping that this one would be the replacement for my aging (but still mostly silent) iMac Pro. It sounds like that's not happening. Sigh.
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Mine actually arrived early today. Should get a chance to run some benchmarks this evening and report back.
Yes it defaults around 1700. I just woke it up and after a minute it was a cool 38 C. I ran Cinabench and it immediately went to 100 C, fans kicked up, after 3300 rpm it was very noticeable. It was hovering over 4,000 RPM and keeping the temp in the 90’s C. It is very audible 3,500 rpm plus but I do not hear it below 3300. It sits on a lower shelf below my desk top.
2018 i7 32GB Ram 512 SSD
Bad news all: my M2 pro mini is “loud.” And it’s not just fan noise - the PSU has noticeable whine/electronic buzz. The good news: I pushed it at 100% cpu for hours last night (10 core) and the fan didn’t spin up beyond the baseline setting. That’s good. But the buzz is bad. I’m unfortunately returning it since the noise drives me crazy. I’ll chug along on my M1 iMac for another year.
M2 Pro mini affected in a similar manner the Mac Studio? I sure hope this isn’t as widespread. I tried multiple Studios and they all sounded horrible. They were quiet but the tone of the noise was unbearabl. Apple is doing its best to make me hate Macs and Mac OS.
I never had a Mac Studio but reports of the noise put me off them. At least my M1 iMac is near-silent.
Yep, my 2018 mini i7 is quieter than any Mac Studio I tried in 95% of use cases. That’s when you know something is wrong.
Agree if it has the same horrible tone. Or I may have to consider my fallback option of using my gaming pc full time. At least I wouldn’t need to use Ventura then. 🤣
If the standard M2 Mini is free from the more extreme noise, I might choose that instead to tide over until I need something beyond what it can do or updated Studios arrive without whine.
To be honest I only want a Mac as I've paid for Logic and Final Cut and enjoyed using both these and it's been on hold until I had a decent machine again. If I could get by on my PC I would but nothing seems to work as well on that
Saying that daisy chaining for audio is a non starter, full stop, is a ludicrous sentence. I have 5 UAD apollo devices daisy chained to a thunderbolt with no issues. You might also want to look into the sound treatment that you have in your room and where your mic is located in said room in relation to the cpu if the sound is that unbearable. For goodness sakes, people do record audio outdoors and manage to remove background noises not related to the subject on a daily basis.
On a German forum someone reported that their new M2 Pro is as quiet as the M1.
I don't mind a bit of fan whoosh, but any high pitched noise would drive me mad.
I don't mind a bit of fan whoosh, but any high pitched noise would drive me mad.
I am in a ‘fortunate’ enough position where I only use a Mac as my daily driver because i have an iphone, ipad and apple watch, and because OS X used to be a great OS. I have no apple only software that I use at least. I find Mac OS incredibly unreliable now and that has only got worse over the past 3-4 years and made me consider windows but I haven’t made the jump yet. All I will say is that my gaming pc has been absolutely rock solid on W10 for the past two years, yet my Mac mini has caused me headache after headache. I will see how I get on with the M2 Pro mini. Fingers crossed it is hassle free.
Final Cut Pro may only use CPU & Media Engine Hardware Encoders when exporting video files, so the M2 Pro chip may generate much less heat as when using GPU-cores (gaming, (Blender-)rendering, playback of video-projects with many filters and tracks...).
GPU-Cores generate much more heat usually, maybe better to try several GPU-benchmarks in a row (unigine heaven GPU benchmark, Cinebench GPU?), this will stress the GPU to 100% load for several minutes and generate a lot of heat for the cooling system.
Then we know.
I have a 2018 Mini (and also a 2012 Mini).
I would expect the m2pro Mini to be silent or nearly-silent under normal or average loads.
Under heavier or full loads, I would expect the fan to rev up some, but it still won't be "loud".
Noticeable (that it's running under load), but again, not loud.
I would expect the m2pro Mini to be silent or nearly-silent under normal or average loads.
Under heavier or full loads, I would expect the fan to rev up some, but it still won't be "loud".
Noticeable (that it's running under load), but again, not loud.