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What can I do about games on imac and the damn noise? Wow for example

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upthetoffees

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 4, 2012
227
434
It's driving me nuts, I just wanted to play Wow after all these years and the fans are so loud, it's just not relaxing. Please, I should not have to buy a pc when I have spent $3.3k on this.

Specs: iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2019), 3,6 GHz 8-Core Intel Core i9, 40 GB 2667 MHz DDR4, Radeon Pro 580X 8 GB, 500GB SSD.

How can these specs make so much noise on a game like Wow? It's utter madness. I put in the recommended settings for Wow (called 5 in game), then loud fans. Lowered to 4, loud fans, 3, 2, 1.. basic graphics and still loud fans. How can such a beast of a machine be so poorly made that I cannot play without hearing the fans going nuts. I have tried closing any open browsers etc but nothing helps.

Would the custom ram added really be a potential culprit? The other times the fans go nuts is heavy downloading, games and 4k videos in Youtube. Very loud.

Any ideas?

Latest OS, was same with previous 2 OS's though.
 
The issue is that iMacs historically were not designed to run a GPU at full throttle for long periods of time. I wish they were (and new M1 Macs seem to do much better...), but most nearly every pre-M1 Mac was simply not built around GPU loads that gaming (and other 3D heavy things, like VR, or 3D modeling work). The iMac Pro seemed to be much better designed for continuous heavy workloads, but I have not used one so I can't say.

This basically means you won't find a software fix to this hardware limitation.

One thing you can do is install Macs Fan Control so you can see all the temp sensor levels, and then make changes to their thermal curves. At least you can see exactly what is happening with temps and then decide if you want to risk higher temps to slow fans a bit and reduce noise.

Surely you have noticed how hot the back of an iMac will get under sustained load. I have often wondered if any external head sinks would move the needle at all. Probably not, but how else to pull heat away outside of fans turned up to 11?
 
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hobowankenobi said:
The issue is that iMacs historically were not designed to run a GPU at full throttle for long periods of time. I wish they were (and new M1 Macs seem to do much better...), but most nearly every pre-M1 Mac was simply not built around GPU loads that gaming (and other 3D heavy things, like VR, or 3D modeling work). The iMac Pro seemed to be much better designed for continuous heavy workloads, but I have not used one so I can't say.

This basically means you won't find a software fix to this hardware limitation.

One thing you can do is install Macs Fan Control so you can see all the temp sensor levels, and then make changes to their thermal curves. At least you can see exactly what is happening with temps and then decide if you want to risk higher temps to slow fans a bit and reduce noise.

Surely you have noticed how hot the back of an iMac will get under sustained load. I have often wondered if any external head sinks would move the needle at all. Probably not, but how else to pull heat away outside of fans turned up to 11?
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Ok thanks for the suggestion, will grab that Fan control app. I had a look at the vents at the back and they don't seem to have any dust in them. I just did the reset of SMC now.
 
upthetoffees said:
Ok thanks for the suggestion, will grab that Fan control app. I had a look at the vents at the back and they don't seem to have any dust in them. I just did the reset of SMC now.
Click to expand...
Yeah, dust is nearly never an issue. Have seen many dozens of modern iMacs apart, and the only place dust was ever an issue was in really dusty environments. Think barn or woodshop.

Fire up Macs Fan control in the default setup (no changes) and just watch the temps for every sensor (don't forget to set it to launch automatically in login). You will see Apple's default settings are actually a bit too conservative (for my tastes); the fans ramp up late...which makes the machine quiet most of the time for most users. All bets are off for heavy loads (I forgot to include stuff like video editing). Ramping to medium speed sooner may help stay out of max fan mode longer.

A long session of anything will ultimately lead to needing to push a lot of heat out (max fans) to not risk sustained high temps known to limit the life of electronics.

Still...once you see the temps, you can start to tinker with fan speeds and see if you can find a setting that is a bit of a compromise between noise and temps.
 
1644879320547.png


This is how fans are in full wow blazing loud fans.

Thanks a lot hobo, some good advice in there.
 
Based on the iFixit repair guide for the 2020 5K 27"...only one fan. So not much to be done:

lACpgXcvlGFyrLvA.jpg


Older imacs had 2 fans, and I feel like way back they had 3. So some tweaks could be made to limit noise without crazy temps.
 
Underneath the duct at the top of the logicboard there appears to one heatsink, which I assume is performing double duty for CPU and GPU via heat pipes. By any stretch, it seems like too little surface area for sustained load, compared to the heatsink fan combo on any middle-of-the-road GPU:

EKVqoidV5YygKFNS.jpg
 
Sorry to say...seems like bad news. I won't defend Apple here, but I would expect they would point any of us (running 100% loads for anything) at a "Pro" machine. :(

I hope knowing all this helps you (and others) decide on hardware.

If it were me, I would consider selling the iMac while it holds good value to a typical 2D user (Photoshop, etc) who would not face the heat/fan/noise issue...and rethink hardware needs.

The M1s crunch the hell out of things with virtually no fans spooling up. Time to switch? We may very well see M series 27" iMacs very soon, and the 24" units are pretty darn solid for general work. I can't speak specifically to gaming, but they have been out long enough for there to be a lot of feedback now.
 
I've got a 27" iMac right next to an Alienware PC. Both have huge fan noise playing the same game. It's possible you can get a PC that will play WoW with not much fan noise, but I very very much doubt it based on my real life observations:

For example Crusader Kings 3. I'm playing right now and the fans kick on with the Alienware (Windows 10). I've played Crusader Kings 3 in the recent past on the iMac and the fans also kick on.

I haven't played WoW for several years, but these games I can run on both PC and Mac and the both have fan noise:
- Hearts of Iron IV
- Crusader Kings II
- Civilization VI

I've played these on both PC and Mac but don't remember the fan noise situation:
- Europa Universalis IV
- Humankind
- Rome Total War

The odd thing is, the fan noise on the PC doesn't bother me. While the same level of fan noise on the iMac bothers me a great deal. I think it's because I don't expect anything special from the PC, while I expect a good experience from the iMac.
 
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WoW does seem to be a bit of a fan-blaster. My 2020 iMac is louder running WoW Classic than it is with other 'demanding' stuff such as PS3 emulation. FFmpeg takes the cake though :)

But... as mentioned above, with headphones on it's not so noticeable.
 
Yeah temperatures actually look fairly low I'd say. One thing I'd recommend to try is also the program Turbo-Boost Switcher to disable turbo boost on your CPU.
VSync is not the same as frame rate limiting per se. The game is probably still trying to draw as many frames per second as it possibly can, it just doesn't set one to be displayed until the display is ready for one but still keeps drawing as fast as it can behind the scenes. So no matter the graphics quality you keep seeing the same fan speed cause it just draws more frames faster instead of higher quality ones. WoW might not have other frame limiting options though, I dunno.
 
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Nermal said:
There's an option under System/Advanced called "Max Foreground FPS", which defaults to 100. I've never actually tried setting it to 60 as I assumed that Vsync would handle that.
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I'd try changing that - VSync does only refresh the displayed render buffer in accordance with the screen refresh rate but it doesn't limit offscreen buffer rendering. Well, I can't speak for WoW code specifically but in general terms at least
 
With my experience playing WoW on various Macs, it might be a specific setting that is causing the fan noise, not necessarily the preset 1,2,3, etc.

There used to be a thread on the Mac Support on blizzard's site that had the recommended settings to lower.

IIRC, the water setting, and maybe sun shaft settings would make my Late 2012 iMac's fans go nuts.

I could tell I was getting close to water by the sound of the fan.

It didn't look as nice, but turning down the water setting might be what is causing yours to be loud.
 
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PatrickCocoa said:
I've got a 27" iMac right next to an Alienware PC. Both have huge fan noise playing the same game. It's possible you can get a PC that will play WoW with not much fan noise, but I very very much doubt it based on my real life observations:
Click to expand...
Is the quality of Alienware PCs that low, or are you using it in a very hot room? My gaming PC is originally from some small company that specializes in gaming PCs. I have replaced the GPU with a model that requires much more power, but the fans remain quiet. Expect when there is a dust buildup below the power supply.
 
casperes1996 said:
I'd try changing that - VSync does only refresh the displayed render buffer in accordance with the screen refresh rate but it doesn't limit offscreen buffer rendering. Well, I can't speak for WoW code specifically but in general terms at least
Click to expand...
I've just done an incredibly non-scientific test, and dropping the frame limit doesn't appear to have any effect. The fans sound the same as they always did.
 
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GMShadow said:
That is not a 2020. 2020 iMacs had all solid-state storage.
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Perhaps, but the pics are from the guide entitled:

iMac Intel 27" Retina 5K Display 2020 Logic Board Replacement​

I suppose the 2019 or earlier may be the same regarding repair process/steps and somebody recycled pics? Or...maybe it is simply is wrong.

Either way, the point likely stands: single fan, smallish heat sink, nothing really to be done to improve cooling on the hardware side.
 
grandM said:
I've just done an incredibly non-scientific test, and dropping the frame limit doesn't appear to have any effect. The fans sound the same as they always did.
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Fair enough then :) Kinda curious if you saw/measured the load on CPU/GPU and that was different at all, cause if there was some lower load put on them it, in combination with something like Turbo Boost Switcher might work a charm :)
TableTop Simulator on my iMac with no frame rate cap but VSync enabled is max fan speed 2700RPM. Framerate cap at 60 + Turbo Boost Switcher fan speed varies from 1300RPM to 1800RPM - all for the DnD table setup we use and same settings used between the two setups.
 
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