Agreed. The 14 is already up there in size. My 16/40 runs cool and only gets warm with fans running when I do extreme intensive tasks like Lightroom AI noise reduction. My old M1 does a 50mp raw in 2 min, M2 pro=40 sec, M3 max=18 sec. This thing is fast.But its too big to haul around. 🤷🏻 My 14" shipped a few hours ago, so I will at least give a try
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14'' M3 Max new owners - fan noise?
- Thread starter Badfish12
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It's not like the 16" is silent when pushing the CPU + GPU to the limit. Both 14" and 16" will spin up the fans then, due to the larger case the 16" has better cooling and is less noisy than the 14" with the same load. And while it's not Intel level annoying, it's still audible and somewhat annoying when it's sitting on the desk. In the end it's just physics.
How hard does the the cpu need to be working to get the fans going? I was about to pull the trigger on an M3 Max 16" that will be used for for music production, but this fan noise discussion has me hesitating, as that is one of the reasons I want to upgrade from my Intel MacBook to get away from the fan noise. I would buy one and test it, but unfortunately in Sweden apples return policy is that I cannot return it after the package is opened. @GrumpyCoder @richard371
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Yeah the denoising time is hilarious isn't it, between 15-20 seconds here for 61mpx raws. Insane
On Lower power mode,
What program is the screenshot from please?
Just did some testing on low power mode and the MBP performs more like a non Max pro model. Fans were silent and not >2500 rpm or hotter then 85C. I ran 8-50mp images through Denise AI and it took about 35sec each vs 15. Geekbench 6 was 2050 single core and 15332 multi. Ill leave it on automatic but it nice knowing I can make it behave more like the pro model without the noise and heat if needed. It's great to have the extra power esp with the AI stuff. If you want to run it as a game machine on your lap maybe the 16 is a better option. For me I'm very pleases with the 14" 16/40 Max
Thanks for this! That's great to know, this information has given me the comfort to go ahead with the M3 Max knowing that I can tone down the fans and heat if needed, but still have full power when that's needed as well.
One of the selling points for Silicon Mac is that they are dead silent. So not anymore from now on?
Don't want to hijack this thread in anyway but I'd just add that on my 16 inch, I've also noticed a lot more noise compared with my M1 Pro model. When doing basic tasks I thankfully never hear the fans still, but as soon as I boot up a game or start stressing the GPU in Lightroom, the fans will ramp up and be audible. This is very different to how the M1 series behaved where it'd be almost impossible to get the fans to come on audibly.
I do kind of miss the silence of my old laptop, but I think it's worth the trade off for the big gains in performance.
I do kind of miss the silence of my old laptop, but I think it's worth the trade off for the big gains in performance.
Are you on low or high power mode in the battery setting when you ran your task? It seems no fan noise at 2k-3k rpm on my 14" on lower power. However, I was doing some export in davinci resolve and notice fan noise towards the end of the encoding on higher power. It seems maybe apps need to be optimized to use the m3.
They never were, M1 Max, M2 Max all make fan noise, if they are silent then you are not pushing them hard enough
And I don’t mean benchmarking do some 3d, Ai stuff or probably games (did not try any yet).
The only silent one is the Air.
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No GPU stays silent even after 20min of Cinebench 2024 on the GPU but if you do the CPU test it makes noise within like 2 min.
Also in 20 min the GPU did not go over 86 or so degrees, the CPU however does not take like to hi 105 and fans ramp up to like 50% or so and it settles at like 100 degrees.
This. The fan noise on my 16" M1 Max and 14" M2 Max are part of the reason I was like "well maybe I do still need a desktop". Heavy work loads will make the fans spin up whether it's the 16" or 14" models.They never were, M1 Max, M2 Max all make fan noise, if they are silent then you are not pushing them hard enough
And I don’t mean benchmarking do some 3d, Ai stuff or probably games (did not try any yet).
The only silent one is the Air.
What about Pro? Also wouldn't 16 inch M3 pro have the performance of 16 M1 Max but be quieter?They never were, M1 Max, M2 Max all make fan noise, if they are silent then you are not pushing them hard enough
And I don’t mean benchmarking do some 3d, Ai stuff or probably games (did not try any yet).
The only silent one is the Air.
Make sense. The Mac Studio will even run cooler. For me the 16 is just too large and heavy so I'll take the sacrifices and chose the 14". When I do heavy stuff it's plugged in anyway. Everyone has a different use case.
Looks pretty rushed but it's something. I'm surprised they don't have the GPU info up in MX Power Gadget. You can turn on GPU frequency and utilization under the settings so he could see what's going on instead of speculating. They finally mentioned that the 14" is capped at a lower power though he didn't really follow that thought through after saying the 14" wasn't reaching max temps. The lower power limit is why the 14" Max models are throttling compared to the 16" when you're using it with loads that use CPU+GPU (or Neural engines). Still Apple is definitely letting the 14" M3 Max hit higher power targets in certain loads than they were the M1/M2 Max variants in High Power mode from the bit of testing I did with the binned Max models. In Topaz Video AI they are much, much closer in speed. Previously there was minimal differences in speed between an M1 Pro, M1 Max, M2 Max in the 14" with that software because of power constraints.
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I agree but it seems that the M3 pro with upgraded memory will work better on the 14" mbp than the MAX would.
It just doesn't seem right that you paid all that moolah for the best chip and get less production and less battery than advertised.
This is where I beg to differ. I'm replacing my m2 Pro because 16 GB want cutting it for me. The m3 pro is very comparable in speed so if I decided to get something faster also. The m3max 14 is fast. It takes 15 sec to denoise photos vs 40 and the m2 pro. It's definitely faster. Most stuff I run on battery runs cool no fans. Ive put it though some tests running Xplane 2 and the fans ran at 5200 RPM and it didn't bother me. I had everything cranked up and its nice. I just have no desire in the 16". At that size and weight, it would stay docked all the time and I would be better off with a Mac studio. The 16 has always out performed the 14 with the max chips but the M3 max far out performs the pro from my testing.
I'm also curious about the 14/30 M3 Max fan noise vs the 16/40. I have the 14" 16/40 coming next week and I'm having second thoughts about my config and 14" vs 16".
Are you running yours docked with an external display? I'm wondering if there are any docked cooling solutions that help dissipate heat better. Or having the laptop open vs. closed, etc. My current setup is a vertical dock with my 13" M1 MBP with the fans at the "top" (mac logo upside down). The fans are fairly audible during most intensive tasks, Lightroom, Photoshop, FCP, etc. but I'm worried the 14" M3 Max 16/40 I have on order will be significantly louder based on what I've read. Now I'm rethinking my config and whether I should get the 16" before my 14" M3 Max arrives next week.
Sometimes it's docked to a 4k 27" etc no issues. It will be louder the 16 in very heavy tasks but so far I have not had any deal breakers. I can exchange until Jan but I love the size of the 14. I handled the 16" monolith at the Apple Store and passed.