Teardown of the Base Model 7 Core GPU iMac 24

[Sankew]

I found this teardown video of the Base Model iMac 24 and was surprised to see the fan was not even near the M1 heat spreader
it's more like the 2018-Early 2020 MacBook Air where the Fan is not even attached to the Heat Spreader

VIDEO LINK

 

[uller6]

well that's interesting. Do you think this design might result in lower performance than if the fan were on the other side of the machine?

 

[Sankew]

well that's interesting. Do you think this design might result in lower performance than if the fan were on the other side of the machine?

I've seen a few comparisons done by GregsGadgets and Luke Miani and turns out there isn't much of a performance degradation
I guess the performance would be in between the M1 MacBook Pro and the M1 MacBook Air

 

[chabig]

The fan doesn't need to be near the heat spreader to make air move across it.

 

[Sankew]

yes but it's a strange move and that too it being a desktop

 

[chabig]

but it's a strange move

Why do you say that? This is an M1 chip, which operates in MacBook Air machines without a fan. It doesn't get hot. And as I say, a fan doesn't need to be near a heat source provided air is ducted correctly.

 

[za9ra22]

Firstly, the fan itself does not need to be physically attached to the heat sink, it simply needs to be able to move external air across it without obstruction. If it were physically attached, the danger in a restrictive space like this, with the materials surrounding it, is that the fan module would heat up via the SoC/heat sink, and would pre-warm the external air supply - reducing thermal efficiency.

Secondly, the base model with the single fan undoubtedly will be intended to throttle if heat approaches or exceeds a set limit, but I'd bet money on Apple having a better idea how to manage heat dissipation than YouTube influencers or MacRumors arm-chair experts.

 

[mj_]

The M1 is so efficient and low-power that it doesn't really need any fans at all to function properly.

 

[Nguyen Duc Hieu]

The 24" screen of this iMac is still an edge-LED IPS LCD, correct?
Not an OLED LCD,
not a full-array miniLED LCD like the iPad M1?

 

[Sankew]

The 24" screen of this iMac is still an edge-LED IPS LCD, correct?
Not an OLED LCD,
not a full-array miniLED LCD like the iPad M1?

Yes it’s an IPS Display

 

[coso]

also this is an heat sink whereas the 4 port has an heat pipe which is more efficient

 

[nieks]

Not an OLED LCD,

OLED and LCD are two different things.

The iMac has an LCD display: a display with a LED backlight.
The 12" iPad Pro has an LCD display: a display with a Mini-LED backlight.
The 11" iPad Pro has an LCD display: a display with a LED backlight.
The iPhone X has an OLED display: a display in which the pixels themselves light up.

An "OLED LCD" does not exist.