I just got an M3 iMac (to replace an M1 iMac that I got when it released back in 2021). For the M1, I never noticed warm air coming out of the bottom (or never checked LOL) but I do notice it on the M3. Fan also seems a bit more noticeable. Is this normal because this iMac has the M3 chip? Thanks
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Hot air blowing from bottom of M3 iMac
- Thread starter swandy
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Usually when you've just installed a new Mac it runs extra tasks in the background like search indexing. That may explain why the processor is being used more intensely and why it would be hotter than usual. Give it a few days.
Thanks. Perhaps it was because I was installing a large app (Diablo IV - about 50GB LOL). Seems better now but will keep an eye on it.
Ha, yeah that would probably do the trick!
I have the M1 iMac now. How does the M3 feel by comparison? Considering selling mine on eBay and using that toward a new one...
Depends on what I am running. But most games - and evening opening and editing photos in either the Photos app and Pixelmator Pro - seem to load and run smoother. Enough to upgrade - again depends on what you are doing with the iMac. My "issue" (and it was my own mistake) was I also use Parallels to run Windows 11 ARM and Parallels will only assign HALF the available RAM to the virtual machine and when I ordered my M1 iMac I read all about how well the M1 chips handle memory. And to be honest - on the Mac side even some of the higher end games ran fine. But on the Windows side - well that was one of the reasons I did the upgrade to an M3 with 16GB of RAM.
(1) Hardly notice the hot air - it is definitely blowing but not anywhere near the temperature I noticed in my original post.
(2) As far as the fan, I rarely if ever notice it. But then again when I am not playing games/videos I am generally playing music through the M3, so that would sort of hide the fan noise if any. But I just turned off the music to post this response and while I can feel some air coming out of the ports on the bottom of the iMac, I don't hear any fan noise at all.
(3) I got the one with the 8 Core CPU and 10 Core GPU, 512 GB Hard Drive and upgraded to 16 GB of RAM.
(2) As far as the fan, I rarely if ever notice it. But then again when I am not playing games/videos I am generally playing music through the M3, so that would sort of hide the fan noise if any. But I just turned off the music to post this response and while I can feel some air coming out of the ports on the bottom of the iMac, I don't hear any fan noise at all.
(3) I got the one with the 8 Core CPU and 10 Core GPU, 512 GB Hard Drive and upgraded to 16 GB of RAM.
I rarely notice it anymore. Certainly not as "hot" as people report and it is definitely much better than when I first noticed it (and posted this thread).
You will hear the fan noise when it's ramped with CPU intensive Apps. Like Topaz Gigapixel when I was working on massive scans to enhance. Because the exhaust ports are super thin compared to the old iMac that had a huge opening at the back for the air to come out, the new iMac M1/M3 has it coming out of the bottom through that thin enclosure. So that air coming out when the fans are full blast will make that noise. Thats the only time it goes up. My iMac M3 is on 24/7 no sleep. Never hear the fan unless I'm doing that work.
Things cooled down after the first day. I'm assuming there are all kinds of background tasks running on a newly activated iMac. I edit video...even then rarely hear the fan. And when I do it's a barely audible whisper.
‘Except for the first day I owned it, I have not heard a peep out of my M3 fan.