14'' M3 Max new owners - fan noise?

[Badfish12]

Anyone with a maxed out 14" M3 Max have any insight on fan noise?

I've seen some reviews that show the fans kick up, but seems they were all testing doing heavy loads, sometimes with high performance mode enabled.

Was curious for more low/medium loads/normal power mode, how has the fan noise been for ya'll? People coming from a 14" M2/1 Max - is it different? Does low power mode still help with lowering fan noise?

 

[cpnotebook80]

I have the 14" M3 Max 16/40 64gb 1TB and i can confirm the fan noise and boy the heat being pushed out. I was rendering a small clip in topaz AI and the idle temp is 40'c with 0 RPM and after 10-20 seconds, the temp pushes to 70'c with fans at 5k rpm or more like a jet engine. the laptop was on my lap and i had to lift the laptop up and it was like hot hot under. I waited for render to finish and temp went down faster than the fans. I did see Luke Miani do the test on his youtube channel and confirmed the same with the fan noise. I am wondering if 16" is better with fan and temp management. I also am sitting on couch and doing some editing etc and if the fans kick up like that all the time, its going to be annoying.

I don't know about the prior models and if any fan/heat issues occurred since I'm jumping from my m1 mbp to this 14" m3 max. So this is new to me.

 

[Badfish12]

I have the 14" M3 Max 16/40 64gb 1TB and i can confirm the fan noise and boy the heat being pushed out. I was rendering a small clip in topaz AI and the idle temp is 40'c with 0 RPM and after 10-20 seconds, the temp pushes to 70'c with fans at 5k rpm or more like a jet engine. the laptop was on my lap and i had to lift the laptop up and it was like hot hot under. I waited for render to finish and temp went down faster than the fans. I did see Luke Miani do the test on his youtube channel and confirmed the same with the fan noise. I am wondering if 16" is better with fan and temp management. I also am sitting on couch and doing some editing etc and if the fans kick up like that all the time, its going to be annoying.

Have you tried low power mode? Does that make it quieter?

 

[cpnotebook80]

Doing it now and seems to be quite with temp at 55'c and no fans for while and then fans went to 2400 rmp but no noise. It took the 20 sec clip 4.5 minutes to complete. I ran a temp monitor and it seems the GPU was never used or was very low in utilization.

With higher power mode, the clip took 2 min to render and can confirm again the fan ramp up at the end at 5k with temp at 55-60'c. Also, power monitor does show gpu being used a bit fluctuating between 28-40%. Could be the app itself for this example.

I left the On Battery and On Power adapter to automatic for now and work on some other tasks tomorrow.

 

[ProXMac]

Anyone with a maxed out 14" M3 Max have any insight on fan noise?

I've seen some reviews that show the fans kick up, but seems they were all testing doing heavy loads, sometimes with high performance mode enabled.

Was curious for more low/medium loads/normal power mode, how has the fan noise been for ya'll? People coming from a 14" M2/1 Max - is it different? Does low power mode still help with lowering fan noise?

Yup, I have the 16 core M3 Max, and I'm wondering if maybe the 14 core would run cooler. It's like Intel Mac PTSD level fan noise. Worst was it was just sitting on my desk had Xcode open and for some reason with no program running, fans went to 5000 RPM just charging few other apps open, and I wasn't even using Xcode.

It's so bad, I almost wonder if there is a glitch or bug , sorta like the 15 Pro heating issue. However I did watch Luke Mianis video and it did seem to confirm the fans are jet engine level noise at times.

I'm hoping to see other people talk about their 14 core variants, but im def trying to debate if the portability is worth the random noise, 16" has no fan noise.

 

[buran-energia]

"Intel Mac PTSD level fan noise" is what I want to avoid. Coming from Intel 16 inch 2019, I want a machine that is silent when compiling xcode in normal mode. I'm curious how 16 inch m3 pro vs. m3 max performs in terms of fan noise when pushing mostly the CPU.

 

[Ma2k5]

shows a good example. 14” M3 Max is the loudest but then again if you aren’t doing high load/sustained loads will you notice it?

He gets the battery conclusion wrong though - M3 Pro is noticeably better as per comment:

Battery test 1:

43% batter used vs 31% means…

38% more battery used by M3 Max in work load test.

Battery test 2:

13% at 590 mins is 6.7mins per %
0% at 540 mins is 5.4mins per % means…

24% longer run times on M3 Pro (>2 hours more 4K video playback).

 

[hovscorpion12]

It was the case that the M2 Max 14" thermal throttled compared to the 16". I don't know if Apple only put 1 fan or 2 on both sides. I do know that MaxTech will be publishing a thermal test video at some point.

 

[cpnotebook80]

Yup, I have the 16 core M3 Max, and I'm wondering if maybe the 14 core would run cooler. It's like Intel Mac PTSD level fan noise. Worst was it was just sitting on my desk had Xcode open and for some reason with no program running, fans went to 5000 RPM just charging few other apps open, and I wasn't even using Xcode.

It's so bad, I almost wonder if there is a glitch or bug , sorta like the 15 Pro heating issue. However I did watch Luke Mianis video and it did seem to confirm the fans are jet engine level noise at times.

I'm hoping to see other people talk about their 14 core variants, but im def trying to debate if the portability is worth the random noise, 16" has no fan noise.

I though it was just me. I did try lower power mode and ran my project in Topaz AI and it seems to limit the GPU, but no fan noise but double the time to do the same task. See image.

 

[ProXMac]

I though it was just me. I did try lower power mode and ran my project in Topaz AI and it seems to limit the GPU, but no fan noise but double the time to do the same task. See image.

View attachment 2310874

Do you think this could be an issue with high power mode specifically (I did have mine on), or the GPU cores?

I find it interesting the top stocked spec Apple sells in the 14’ is the 14 core 30 Core GPU, I wonder if Apple knows something about the 16 core, 40 core GPU one… problem is you have no choice but to go to 16 core 40 core GPU if you don’t want to lose an arm and a leg for more memory because of the weird pricing..

 

[ProXMac]

"Intel Mac PTSD level fan noise" is what I want to avoid. Coming from Intel 16 inch 2019, I want a machine that is silent when compiling xcode in normal mode. I'm curious how 16 inch m3 pro vs. m3 max performs in terms of fan noise when pushing mostly the CPU.

It seems Luke Miani said “next week, we’ll test 16” vs 14” m3 max” , but I’m betting fans are not an issue on the 16”, they were not in the past.

 

[macphoto861]

It seems Luke Miani said “next week, we’ll test 16” vs 14” m3 max” , but I’m betting fans are not an issue on the 16”, they were not in the past.

I don't think I ever heard my M1 Max fans (beyond a very gentle whir that I specifically had to listen for), while my M3 Max fans definitely spin up under heavy load. This is just one point of reference, but building previews in Lightroom Classic produced no noticeable fan noise on the M1, while the M3 gets noticeably loud (not as bad as I remember the i9 being, but still not an insubstantial amount of noise).

 

[Badfish12]

I don't think I ever heard my M1 Max fans (beyond a very gentle whir that I specifically had to listen for), while my M3 Max fans definitely spin up under heavy load. This is just one point of reference, but building previews in Lightroom Classic produced no noticeable fan noise on the M1, while the M3 gets noticeably loud (not as bad as I remember the i9 being, but still not an insubstantial amount of noise).

Was your M1 14” or 16”?

 

[Badfish12]

Do you think this could be an issue with high power mode specifically (I did have mine on), or the GPU cores?

I find it interesting the top stocked spec Apple sells in the 14’ is the 14 core 30 Core GPU, I wonder if Apple knows something about the 16 core, 40 core GPU one… problem is you have no choice but to go to 16 core 40 core GPU if you don’t want to lose an arm and a leg for more memory because of the weird pricing..

You had that noise on high power mode? My understanding is that mode just cranks up fans super quickly on 14” in order to prevent throttling faster, so not surprised about that.

Have you tested fan noise at normal power mode/low power mode?

 

[macphoto861]

Was your M1 14” or 16”?

Oh, sorry... 16".

 

[MLVC]

14" 14 core M3 Max, have yet to hear the fans turn on.

 

[Ma2k5]

I don't think I ever heard my M1 Max fans (beyond a very gentle whir that I specifically had to listen for), while my M3 Max fans definitely spin up under heavy load. This is just one point of reference, but building previews in Lightroom Classic produced no noticeable fan noise on the M1, while the M3 gets noticeably loud (not as bad as I remember the i9 being, but still not an insubstantial amount of noise).

Makes sense.

The M3 Max going to 12 performance cores from 8 was always going to change the game. As an M1 Max 16” user I concur I don’t ever really hear the fan, even gaming it’s quite low!

 

[ProXMac]

You had that noise on high power mode? My understanding is that mode just cranks up fans super quickly on 14” in order to prevent throttling faster, so not surprised about that.

Have you tested fan noise at normal power mode/low power mode?

Yes I was plugged in (coming from a 16” , I always had on high power mode) , I’ve now changed it to automatic mode, will be testing over next few days to see. As I agree I know that’s part of the intention of the mode , though 16” chassis never heard. And reviews of M1 and M2 14” never seemed to be overly loud.

All I had was Xcode open, and the SwiftUi preview just chilling, wasn’t even interacting.

My house is not heated as well, this was in the morning and 67 degrees Fahrenheit on a cold table.

I wanna know if anyone has the 14 core CPU , 30 core GPU 14” and how they find their fan.

 

[cpnotebook80]

I opened Blender and rendering the deer sample file and on high power mode, the fans ramp up to 7k at 65-70'c.
I changed to automatic power mode and fans were at 2k rpm but less noise. i am using the laptop on battery and not power adapter. A friend is helping me with some blender tutorials and it takes a while for shaders to render on the complex samples from blender website.

 

[ProXMac]

14" 14 core M3 Max, have yet to hear the fans turn on.

Yes this is what I wanted to hear!

If you don’t mind what’s your workload , what kind of apps are you running.

What battery mode do you leave yours on?

I’m wondering if the 40 GPU cores is too hot in the 14”.

 

[ProXMac]

This is the video, of the situation from earlier as described. Though Xcode is open, again it was on another space not being touched. Was just plugged into my studio display not using it and I started to hear fans ram up so I checked to see speed and how the CPU and GPU were being used… or not?

This is a 14” M3 Max 16 core, 40 core GPU spec, with 48 GB. High power mode was on as default when plugged in, though I wasn’t rendering, exporting , or building any project before this video either. I use to always leave my 16” on high power never did much unless actually processing something.

I’ll be testing more this weekend, going to just leave it to “automatic” power mode to see if high power is doing more than usual to cool 16/40 cores

Though I’m tempted to test a 14/30 core now.. if Apple wasn’t being skimpy on the memory tiers

 

[saturnotaku]

I played RE: Village and Deus Ex: Mankind Divided on my 12/18 M3 Pro 14, and I could only hear the fans if I had my ears hovering millimeters over the keyboard. Even then I felt like I had to strain to hear anything at all.

@ProXMac or @cpnotebook80 - do you have the ability to test games on your machines? Can you run either of these titles or perhaps 3DMark and report on the noise levels?

I have a 14/30 M3 Max on order from Best Buy, but I may take it right back to the store if the fans are going to be noticeably louder when playing these games than what my M3 Pro is doing right now. I have to say it is dang impressive to have a laptop that can provide essentially a 60 fps experience (58 according to the benchmark) in DX: MD at 1080p and the game's default settings while emitting practically zero noise.

 

[ProXMac]

I played RE: Village and Deus Ex: Mankind Divided on my 12/18 M3 Pro 14, and I could only hear the fans if I had my ears hovering millimeters over the keyboard. Even then I felt like I had to strain to hear anything at all.

@ProXMac or @cpnotebook80 - do you have the ability to test games on your machines? Can you run either of these titles or perhaps 3DMark and report on the noise levels?

I have a 14/30 M3 Max on order from Best Buy, but I may take it right back to the store if the fans are going to be noticeably louder when playing these games than what my M3 Pro is doing right now. I have to say it is dang impressive to have a laptop that can provide essentially a 60 fps experience (58 according to the benchmark) in DX: MD at 1080p and the game's default settings while emitting practically zero noise.

I don’t have any of those games, I could run a test, though I’m fairly certain it’s gonna be same as my video.

Did you watch the Luke Miani video posted above, go to 4:00 min mark and he is running Cinebench, and that sounds about right for the level of fan I’m hearing.

Though another commenter on here mentioned their 14/30 core wasn’t emitting fans , though I’m not sure their workload yet.

 

[saturnotaku]

I don’t have any of those games, I could run a test, though I’m fairly certain it’s gonna be same as my video.

Did you watch the Luke Miani video posted above, go to 4:00 min mark and he is running Cinebench, and that sounds about right for the level of fan I’m hearing.

Though another commenter on here mentioned their 14/30 core wasn’t emitting fans , though I’m not sure their workload yet.

I did watch the video and commented that particular portion removed any remorse I had of picking the M3 Pro over the Max, but I just couldn't help myself with ordering that other laptop. I had only skimmed your previous posts and just noticed that you have the 40-core model so that could indeed make a difference. Maybe I will just bite the bullet and open the Max when it arrives to see for myself.

 

[ProXMac]

I did watch the video and commented that particular portion removed any remorse I had of picking the M3 Pro over the Max, but I just couldn't help myself with ordering that other laptop. I had only skimmed your previous posts and just noticed that you have the 40-core model so that could indeed make a difference. Maybe I will just bite the bullet and open the Max when it arrives to see for myself.

Frankly , if you wanna open it (I think they got nice holiday return policy’s now) you could help the forum here 😅😅 try and solve if maybe the 30 core isn’t as bad.

I’ve not seen test on 30 core yet, I think Miani’s was 40 core, as I thought he said they were top spec , unless I missed something.