24-inch iMac tier differences

[Gudi]

An undocumented difference between the base ($1,299) and mid-tier ($1,499) model of the 24-inch M1 iMac is one more fan and a heat pipe. And it shows its effect in form of heat, noise and sustained peak performance.

$200 buy you:

• three more color options
• an 8th GPU core (+14%)
• two more USB 3 ports
• TouchID button on the Magic Keyboard ($50)
• Gigabit Ethernet port on the power brick ($30)
• one more fan and a heat pipe

Now I wonder what hidden features the top tier model conceals. ?

 

[Kung gu]

The top tier model is the same as mid-tier but with extra storage.

 

[leman]

Yep, the base iMac uses lower quality binned M1 chips (less efficient ones) and it saves on the cooling system as well. The later is a bit of a bummer, can’t see Apple saving too much money here, but it’s still a perfectly fine home/office computer.

 

[Never mind]

The top tier model is the same as mid-tier but with extra storage.

Storage yes, but also two fans/heat pipe. The lower end model only has one fan as mentioned above from op and video

 

[Warped9]

Saw that video the other day and I found it interesting. I’ve already decided I will eventually go for 16GB with at least 512 if not 1TB SSD. But I’m presently holding off on any major purchases because, a) I’m nit desperate for a new computer and, b) until I get called back to work after this current (and hopefully last) lockdown and things settle down to something resembling a form of normalcy.

In the interim I am considering colours. I’m leaning green, but I also like that yellow. ?

 

[EntropyQ3]

I said in another thread that I felt that the 24” iMac lacked integrity as a stationary computer, offering no benefits for it’s loss of either portability or flexibility.
But not being able to cool a 15W chip due to saving on a heatpipe and a tiny fan is on an other level.

That’s just horrible.

 

[Kung gu]

I said in another thread that I felt that the 24” iMac lacked integrity as a stationary computer, offering no benefits for it’s loss of either portability or flexibility.
But not being able to cool a 15W chip due to saving on a heatpipe and a tiny fan is on an other level.

That’s just horrible.

It’s fine, people who buy the base model are not doing intensive work anyway. The MacBook Pro M1 also has 1 fan and the MBA has no fan, so it will be fine.

For people who want to do intensive works loads they can buy the mid tier iMac model with 2 fans.

 

[leman]

I said in another thread that I felt that the 24” iMac lacked integrity as a stationary computer, offering no benefits for it’s loss of either portability or flexibility.
But not being able to cool a 15W chip due to saving on a heatpipe and a tiny fan is on an other level.

That’s just horrible.

I don't think it's horrible at all, the performance is more than adequate for the intended market. I am just a bit surprised that the base model is different at all, doesn't seem to me like it would be significantly cheaper to produce. I mean, I understand the use of binned lower-quality M1s, that's fine, they have to go somewhere, but actually make a different chassis?

In the end, it just sounds like typical Apple tactics to nudge you towards buying a more expensive iMac.

 

[Significant1]

to cool a 15W chip due to saving on a heatpipe and a tiny fan is on an other level.

That’s just horrible.

Haven't watched the video, but one fan should be plenty. The only reason I would imagine for using two, is to reduce noise, by running them at lower rpm.

 

[Spindel]

This is kind of a funny thread.

Now I don't have an M1 iMac I have a M1 Mini but here are some real world observations in regards to the Mini.

For my usual work fan never spins up it always sits on min rev of around 1700 rpm. CPU temps bounce between 24-50 degrees with them mostly staying at sub 35 degrees.

Real work for me is AutoCAD, excel, outlook, teams, onedrive, onenote, word, powerpoint and web browser.

If I run Cinebench R23 CPU temps are at around 70 degrees and fan sits at around 1700 rpm so no spin up even when I slam the CPU.

I made a thread here:

I decided to torture my M1 Mini a bit

So I ran cinebench r23 multicore test at the same time as I ran this in safari: http://www.kevs3d.co.uk/dev/shaders/lightbox.html (with rotate world activated) in full screen. This is the first time I've had the fan spin up (still couldn't hear the fan). The fan reach a speed of 2100 RPM...

forums.macrumors.com

Where I tried to get the fan speed up by running cinebench at the same time as I ran a browser based real time 3d animation. Only then when basically max straining both the CPU and the GPU I got to 96 degrees on cpu and 72 degrees on GPU i got the fan to ramp up.

So the conclusion of this long and convoluted post is that in most "real" work the one fan iMac will perform good and not be a problem. Because I'm assuming it will behave a bit like the Mini and what I have concluded is that you need to slam both CPU and GPU for a long time for it to even rev up the fan. And to be frank most real life work loads do not do this simultaneously. But if you have a work load that does this you should opt for the highest tier.

EDIT:// Also remember that the M1 is the low end offering from Apple, just because it happens to kick x86 computers ass it is still a fact that this is the lowest tier of apple computers that just happens to be able to punch way above their weight class.

 

[EntropyQ3]

Because I'm assuming it will behave a bit like the Mini and what I have concluded is that you need to slam both CPU and GPU for a long time for it to even rev up the fan. And to be frank most real life work loads do not do this simultaneously. But if you have a work load that does this you should opt for the highest tier.

Well the mini has a cooling system designed to deal with 65W TDP, not 10.
The video is unfortunately quite clear, the cheaper iMac throttles down to 10W continuous power draw and reduces performance. And is noisier even there, as its fan has to spin faster than the dual fan+heat pipe setup at 15W.

Obvious real-world application: Games. Which, for these consumer oriented machines is a quite likely scenario.

I was not surprised to hear of Jony Ives' involvement with the design of the 24" iMac. I fear for the consequences this might have for a larger iMac or a more powerful MacMini. The one thing that has been described about the more powerful Mini is "thinner"......

 

[Kung gu]

Well the mini has a cooling system designed to deal with 65W TDP, not 10.
The video is unfortunately quite clear, the cheaper iMac throttles down to 10W continuous power draw and reduces performance. And is noisier even there, as its fan has to spin faster than the dual fan+heat pipe setup at 15W.

Obvious real-world application: Games. Which, for these consumer oriented machines is a quite likely scenario.

I was not surprised to hear of Jony Ives' involvement with the design of the 24" iMac. I fear for the consequences this might have for a larger iMac or a more powerful MacMini. The one thing that has been described about the more powerful Mini is "thinner"......

The M1 goes in an 11" iPad Pro for goodness sake. Stop worrying.

I would not worry about higher end Macs, they will get better cooling than a base 24" iMac. It's clear to me that Apple
has a thermal target set in mind for each Mac.

The M1X Mac mini will have the same specs as the M1X 14" and M1X 16" MBP. The M1X Mac mini will be thicker than the 14" and 16".

Remember the next powerful Mac mini is not getting desktop class intel power hungry CPU's, its getting a SoC made for Apple's higher end laptops.

If the next Mac mini was getting Intel 12th gen desktop CPU's and getting thinner then I would worry but it's not.

The base iMac was not intended for long workloads like the MBA.

What you are forgetting is the MBP 13" also with M1 thinner than 24" iMac also has 1 fan.

 

[Spindel]

Well the mini has a cooling system designed to deal with 65W TDP, not 10.

Is it really? All the info I can find is that the M1 mini only has a slab of metal with fins on it that the fan blows over while the 2018 Mac Mini has a heat pipe solution so they differ. I just don't know how the different designs effect dissipated heat.

Only thing in the M1 Mini lifted directly from the Intel ones are the PSUs at 135 W (or what ever it can deliver).

 

[leman]

The video is unfortunately quite clear, the cheaper iMac throttles down to 10W continuous power draw and reduces performance. And is noisier even there, as its fan has to spin faster than the dual fan+heat pipe setup at 15W.

I thought they said that the fan was almost inaudible even with max RPM?

 

[Kung gu]

I thought they said that the fan was almost inaudible even with max RPM?

Pretty sure that was for the dual fan iMac.

 

[leman]

Pretty sure that was for the dual fan iMac.

Have another look,fan test starts at 3:40

They do say that under load the fans on the more expensive iMac are practically idle, but that’s just an academic difference if the fan is barely audible anyway.

 

[Kung gu]

Have another look,fan test starts at 3:40

They do say that under load the fans on the more expensive iMac are practically idle, but that’s just an academic difference if the fan is barely audible anyway.

Ahh my bad.

 

[jdb8167]

Haven't watched the video, but one fan should be plenty. The only reason I would imagine for using two, is to reduce noise, by running them at lower rpm.

The one fan iMac throttles and the two fan iMac doesn’t. Pretty simple. If you need the extra 15% performance get the upper-tier. Much like the MacBook Air vs. the Pro except in this case the one fan iMac is sometimes noisier than the faster upper-tier.